Toronto Eaton Centre

[Skeezix]

1 Below will become part of the mall

I'd be nice if Cadillac would do something interesting with 1 Below, but the space will probably just end up with more U.S. retailers catering to 14-year old girls.

Any word on what's happening to the exterior facade?

If Cadillac is keeping a floor, that would account for all the floors it seems, so sadly no Maison Simons. Shame.

 

[pw20]

1 Below will become part of the mall: Nordstrom will be at ground level and on 2 and 3. It's possible that some parts of the ground floor may end up in other hands too. Sears (bizarrely) is keeping 4 and above for its offices. We are working on a story about mall expansion and renovation in the GTA now, destined for the front page later today!

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If I were Cadillac Fairview I'd try and split up the main floor - giving Nordstrom 3/4's, giving 1/4 to Simon's which would lead to a 1 below store. (just speculation on my part). You could create a fairly grand entrance for Nordstrom in the courtyard facing the mall - as well as do something interesting with the north galleria. There's a lot of space to play with.

 

[Skeezix]

There's a lot of space to play with.

If Cadillac has the creativity to use it.

 

[Bayer]

From the Star:
"Sears Canada will keep the top four floors for its Toronto headquarters, while the remaining 140,000 square feet of additional space will be leased to “best-in-class retailers” and redeveloped, said spokeswoman Janine Ramparas at Cadillac Fairview Corp., which owns and manages the Eaton Centre.“We are actively negotiating with several new retailers and will make those announcements once agreements are in place, so stay tuned,” Ramparas said.
Possible contenders include Bloomingdale’s (now owned by Macy’s Inc.), Quebec-based department store Simons, and Saks, though the high-end retailer is expected to take over Hudson’s Bay at Yonge-Bloor to compete with Holt Renfrew."

 

[ShonTron]

From the Star:

Possible contenders include Bloomingdale’s (now owned by Macy’s Inc.), Quebec-based department store Simons, and Saks, though the high-end retailer is expected to take over Hudson’s Bay at Yonge-Bloor to compete with Holt Renfrew."

Hmmm. Since Sears only has the top two floors (or so I thought) as offices, I wonder what they want to do with the extra two, unless they couldn't get rid of them.

140,000 seems to be the right size for a smaller department store - it's only slightly smaller than a Walmart Supercentre (150-175k), but significantly larger than a regular Walmart (90-120k). Simon's could probably fit.

 

[Johnny Au]

Large department stores are a thing of the past, especially given the popularity of online shopping.

 

[AndreaPalladio]

I'd love Crate & Barrel to open an Eaton Centre location.

 

[Skeezix]

Simons are usually in the range of 100,000-115,000 sq. ft. (the largest, at West Edmonton Mall, is 118,000 sq. ft.).

 

[officedweller]

I'm not sure that the Nordstrom three storeys are all necessarily above-grade. Did it say that somewhere? (I could have missed it) I assumed Nordstrom would want 1 Below with interior mall frontage. Maybe Cadillac wanted to keep it.

If Sears keeps four upper storeys for its head office (waste of space), and Nordstrom takes three storeys, that might, or might not, account for the entirety of the store. It was originally 10 storeys, but 3 Below was given up decades ago, and 2 Below was given up when the original Eaton's went bankrupt (prior to the short-lived eatons). That leaves 8 floors, so there still might be some free space, depending on which upper floors Sears is using, how they are counting storeys and whether Cadillac keeps 1 Below. 213,000 square feet seems like a relatively small square footage for 3 storeys, given that the original 10-storey store was reportedly 1,000,000 sq. ft.

....

Some of the space at the far northwest corner might be kept for the elevators and reception for Sears' offices on the upper floors. Still, 213,000 sq. ft. is a big store, about 50,000 more square feet than a typical Walmart Supercentre.

The numbering of the floors is slightly confusing as Eaton Centre and Eaton's/Sears used different orders.

In the Eaton Centre,
Level 0 is the food court (former Eaton's floor 3B)
Level 1 is the corridor where Old Navy is and the dead corridor to Canadian Tire/Mark's, continues south to Richtree and Queen Station/Bay. This was former Eaton's floor 2B, taken over post 1997 bankrupcy.
Level 2 of the Eaton Centre is the lowest level of Sears - men's clothing and such (Eaton's/Sears floor 1B). This continues to street level at Queen Street to the south and the southbound trains entrance to Dundas Station to the north.
Level 3 is the old Eaton's Main Floor (now Jays shop, shoes, luggage, cosmetics, etc), street level at Dundas Street, Apple Store/Bay bridge on south end.

Eaton's/Sears floors continue with 2, 3, 4, 5.

There is a Level 4 in the Eaton Centre, equivalent to Level 2 of the store, but it is used only for Mr. Greenjeans, Lenscrafters, 2nd floor entrance to Indigo and access to elevators for parking and offices.

Sears offices are the former Eaton's floors 6, 7, they'd be equivalent to the Eaton Centre's Levels 8 and 9 if they existed.

What is Sears/Cadillac Fairview going to do with Levels 4 and 5 of the store? Did nobody want them?

In Vancouver, at Pacific Centre, Nordstrom will not occupy space on the mall level - except escalators and elevators.
That said, Nordstrom retains the principal street level (high ceilinged) level of the store.

So in TEC, I could see them giving up 1B (TEC level 2) and keeping the level 3 main floor (which also accesses the mall), and 2 levels above that, yielding:

Sears offices - 6, 7, 8, 9
Nordstrom - 3, 4, 5
TEC retail - 0, 1, 2

which accounts for all 10 levels.

In terms of carving out access to the offices above, that's what Cadillac Fairview is doing for the office space above Nordstrom at Pacific Centre. I don't see how Sears would be able to cope with the noise, etc. if they are staying in their offices during the renovations.

Cadillac Fairview wasn't innovative enough to provide streetfront retail facing Granville St. or Robson Street at Pacific Centre, so I wouldn't expect a vertical split for Nordstrom and Simons.

The Vancouver renos do carve out a street level vestibule to access the mall, but at TEC the Yonge-Dundas entry already does that.

Website for the Vancouver renos for comparison: http://www.725granville.com/Pages/default.aspx

Is level 1B (Level 2) equal to 140,000 sq ft in size?

Of interest - here's the "after" for Vancouver's Nordstrom and the current Sears TEC. I think you'll see new cladding on the upper levels to daylight the Sears office space, and solid cladding for the Nordstrom store.

http://changingcitybook.com/2012/09/17/nordstrom-granville-street/

http://citysightseeingtoronto.com/blog/?p=949

 

[ksun]

Sears will move out by end of Feb and Nordstrom will open in 2016 -- what will happen to those floors the next two years, renovating all the time?

Reading the comments on the star, I don't know why some readers think Nordstrom is as expensive as Holts - at least in the US their prices are lower than the Bay and isn't "luxury" as indicated in the news report at all.

 

[ShonTron]

Sears continues its death spiral, laying off over 1600 workers at the Rexdale, Calgary, Vaughan, Montreal and Belleville warehouses and staff at the Eaton Centre headquarters. Outsourcing the call centre to the Philippines.

Some of this should have been expected, but Sears gave it up a while ago. F**k Eddie Lampert. I can tell him, with a shrug, where that fountainhead can be shoved.

http://www.thestar.com/business/2014/01/15/sears_canada_to_cut_more_than_1600_jobs.html

 

[Dan416]

I'm fairly certain Level 2 is being given back to the mall, based on what I've heard. Turns out what I heard at work last week about Nordstrom taking over part of Sears' spot was true!

 

[interchange42]

Pretty much as I have already stated, Level 2, aka the first level below ground at the Dundas end, is amongst the 140,000 square feet not being taken by Nordstrom. Some of that 140,000 square feet must also be at ground level. Nordstrom will take the rest of the ground level plus levels 2 and 3. Sears has everything above that.

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[officedweller]

Sears will move out by end of Feb and Nordstrom will open in 2016 -- what will happen to those floors the next two years, renovating all the time?

Here's the Vancouver store in mid-December, partway through renos (which started November 2012) to a Spring 2015 opening:

I went out at lunch and snapped a few shots.


IMG_0251 by nbeaulieu98, on Flickr

 

[donoreo]

Two years renovating one store? Why would it take so long?