Retail Apocalypse
 

Pier 1 Imports to close up to 450 North American locations. I'm guessing that might include the Regina store. Suburban box stores are disappearing fast.

Funny that when I visited the Regina location during the holidays, I had a conversation regarding how surprising that it’s still open with their overpricing, bad service and lack of being current compared to other home furnishing retailers. Meh. Bye Pier 1.

Southland Mall
 

Anyone know about the Yoyoso opening in the Southland? On the one hand it's a good thing as I think it might be the first retail chain to open there in quite a while but I see that the franchise is listed for sale on commercial real estate sites. Can't be coming soon if they haven't sold it yet!

Petsmart
 

Must be a new Petsmart opening as they are hiring all positions. My guess is maybe Capital Crossing? I guess it's a good thing for the North West, I just wish we could see some new brands...

How comparable is Yoyoso to Miniso? I've been to the Miniso in Calgary and it's a great store, lots of high quality replicas at low prices and neat Japanese items.

Looks like a similar concept. Replicas of what??

Everything in there from pillows to cologne to pens to bath soap. It's not replica in senses of fake Rolexes, but more so like they are creating their own cheaper (and brightly colored) versions of convenience products you would find at other stores.

Cornwall’s started to work replacing the ceiling (as they did in the rest of the mall) from Shoppers/Lush area through to the Sask Drive entrance. I didn’t actually notice that this work was outstanding - though they’d completed all the ceiling work.

Anyone think they’d planned on sprucing the mall up enough to sell it, but too their eye off the all-important tentant roster, and have now shot themselves in the foot (if a sale was part of the plan? Total speculation on my part - just trying to find a sliver of logic in the gong show that is 2019/20 Cornwall).

Minor news at Cornwall Centre: If you have ever needed to use the washrooms off of the food court, you understand how inadequate they are. They opened new washrooms (in addition to the existing ones) on Monday. They are located on the second level just before the Saskatchewan Drive parkade entrance (behind Kung Pao Wok). They look nice. I noticed one glaring omission though: there are no soap dispensers! They had bottles of liquid hand soap sitting on the counters. As if those won't walk away :(

I believe they would liked to sell it. Selling is about leasing not renovations. It is not like your house. The renos are to attract tenants and of course shoppers.

This is where the only mall washrooms used to be located no?

Yes! I had totally forgotten that the washrooms used to be located back there.

Glad that they are adding those bathrooms to help with the fact that the current food court bathrooms are inadequate regarding size, especially the lacking amount of toilets in the men’s bathroom. I hope they will paint and remove the remaining ugly red and sand color paint design that still exists in the first and second floor various entrances from the parkades. UGLY. White is so much better, brighter and looks absolutely more modern and up to date.

I want the mall to plant trees and shrubs at the Sask Drive concrete jungle entrance. I have actually contemplated buying and donating even just 2 trees to have the mall plant as it’s just so disappointing how shameful that entrance is.

I could be imagining this but I thought I read somewhere that they were planning a reno for that entrance. Speaking of which, the front entrance is still a little underwhelming with all that concrete. do hey even turn on those black spotlights??

The Hamilton Street Entrance render from August 2019 shows a possible renovation (I’m sure based on what tenant they get on that side) but no rendering of a new entrance makeover for the Sask Drive entrance. PS Still think the Cushman Wakefield
Render (compared to what they are doing to the Cornwall’s sister mall Midtown Saskatoon and it’s former Sears Space) completely disappointing, ugly and lackluster. No artistic vision at all for the exterior, especially with the main floor.

http://www.cushmanwakefieldregina.co...ugust-2019.pdf

I would have to agree. It seems like they are trying but not trying so to speak. It must have been a pretty penny to redo all the flooring etc. and now they are pushing out all the tenants. Midtown is clearly the superior property at this point by a long shot. Perhaps they're putting all their eggs in one basket as mentioned. It's a shame because people clearly want to shop there and yet we'll have to settle for mediocrity as usual.

OK, that makes sense to me.

(out of my depths on this one - just trying to make some sense of what the heck is going on at Cornwall... I look at peer malls (the big one or two that we can name for any other city in Canada... PacCentre; Chinook; WestEd; MidTown; Polo Park; Rideau; Eaton Centre; etc) in other cities, and they're not thriving... but I don't think they're in the hapless position that the Cornwall seems to be in)

I'm in Cornwall every day - and the thing that strikes me is the demographic. Setting aside the obvious downtown workers (they flood out at break/lunch & typically wear ID tags, so relatively easy to spot)… the demographic skews pretty young, I'd say.

This is especially evident on high school PD days - teenagers are at the mall. And most of them are carrying shopping bags... this doesn't seem like a Mallrats situation. So, the mall clearly has stores they're interested in, and willing to come downtown for. But if the mall's fumbling the ball on rent, or overextending its financial resources on the reno, and losing tentants… all the customer goodwill in the world is meaningless.

(and no - I'm not saying 'the young folks' are essentially a golden egg - but if there were rarely young folks in the mall, that's not a great thing. See: Golden Mile & Vic Square)

Volcom also closing.

https://www.cjme.com/2020/01/13/corn...r-sears-space/

Two new spaces moving in. Whoever is taking the 45,000 square feet is surely a large retailer.