Heard on the weekend that Reitmans may be shutting down in the Rupert Square Mall.
Any truth to this rumour? If that is true, I wonder if Walmart will attempt to expand like they wanted to in their initial plans.
I personally would love to see our mall appear to be full of more shops. there being too many empty spaces just makes it an eyesore. That being said i am sure that there would be plenty of room for all the shops upstairs to relocate downstairs.
The unfortunate thing is that the “value” that a mall provides to stores is traffic.
So when a mall isn’t full, it’s not providing the full benefit to stores. Fewer people going to the mall because there are fewer stores leads to fewer stores. Then it’s a downward spiral.
I’ve seen it where malls pull themselves out of that by offering new stores free rent for a few months. That’s better than having an empty store, because at least it will attract traffic for your other stores.
I’ve also seen a large American chain try and kill a mall by doing the opposite. They were previously one of the ‘anchors’ at a mall, and it was thriving. Then they built a new Mega-lo-mart in another part of town, and were in direct competition with the mall. But since they still had a lease on their previous space at the mall, they just left it vacant. With the lights and HVAC on full steam. And the mall started to suffer badly.
If it is true I hope that the workers are able to find new jobs.
Looks like this is now confirmed as true.
That is a sizable loss for the Rupert Square and also I believe the loss of one of their original tenants from back when the mall first opened in the 70’s.
In fact, I believe Reitmans may be the last of their original tenants (not sure if TD and RBC were originally there from the beginning or not, but I don’t think).
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