BC’s largest shopping complex will break ground in Tsawwassen this year, open by 2015, as an outlet- oriented destination for discount shoppers and a service-oriented centre for locals, according to the developers.
The shopping mecca will include Ivanhoe Cambridge’s 1.2 million-square-foot enclosed mall, named Tsawwassen Mills, and Property Development Group’s 600,000-square-foot adjacent outdoor mall, named Tsawwassen Commons.
Combined, the two malls will be larger than Ivanhoe Cambridge’s 1,713,000-square-foot Metropolis at Metrotown, which is currently B.C.’s largest.
“About 50% of the retail in our centre will be outlet or value-priced,” Ivanhoe Cambridge vice-president of new development John Scott told Business in Vancouver.
“Discount retail is certainly something that functions well in any economy. People are looking for value.”
Successful mall developer and Aberdeen Centre owner Thomas Fung believes Scott’s strategy is sound. “Discount merchandise is greatly in need in greater Vancouver area, as long as the goods are practical and durable and the store has a welcoming atmosphere and comfortable ambience,” Fung told BIV.
Fung pointed to a dollar store tenant in his Aberdeen Centre, Daiso, which sells nearly $1 million worth of merchandise monthly. That is an example of how attractive low-cost retailing can be, Fung said.
His own fashion-based Price Just 4 U, also in Aberdeen Centre, is likely a better example of the kind of low-cost retailing that will go on at Tsawwassen Mills, however.
So-called “factory outlet” stores tend to sell brand-name clothing at reduced prices and are run by the manufacturers that produce Reebok, Tommy Hilfiger and the Gap fashions.
To balance the project, Tsawwassen Commons will not have outlet stores.
Instead, Property Development Group founder and chair Lawrence Rank told BIV, it will have three large anchor tenants that will likely include a home-improvement store and an electronics store, as well as 30 to 40 smaller stores.
“We have spent an extensive amount of time doing our market research, analyzing trade data and the market demands as well as understanding the road network and access patterns,” he said. “That indicates that this is the right thing to do.”
Thomas Consultants managing principal and retail consultant Michael Penalosa agreed. “There’s opportunity for another regional mall in the Lower Mainland,” Penalosa told BIV.
Low vacancy rates at major malls across Metro Vancouver leave few options for large American retailers who want to lease larger footprints, he said. And, while high-end retailers rumoured to be thinking about expanding into Metro Vancouver, such as Nordstrom, are likely to locate closer to the urban centre, others are likely to consider opening in a suburban mega-mall.
Both Penalosa and Scott believe the Tsawwassen shopping centre will be a destination for shoppers from as far away as Coquitlam partly because Canadians flock to U.S. outlet malls such as Seattle Premium Outlets in Tulalip, Washington.
Existing Tsawwassen retailers fluctuate between being in denial and being scared that the mall will force them out of business.
Many did not see this development coming, given that the 180-acre site was part of the agricultural land reserve until it was pulled out as part of the Tsawwassen First Nation’s treaty settlement.
Retailers who are in denial doubt that mall shoppers will stray from Highway 17 and visit what has so far been their quiet corner of the Corporation of Delta.
“People who go to the outlet mall in Tulalip eat at the food court, shop until they drop and then go home. Not many stay or wander into Marysville,” explained Tsawwassen Business Improvement Association executive director Ana Arciniega about those retailers’ sentiment.
The mega-mall will undoubtedly have some impact on current retailers, however – even those in what are now community-based strip malls like the 124,000-square-foot Tsawwassen Town Centre Mall.
“It’s not a matter of whether it will impact our retailers,” said David Laulainen, Town Centre Mall’s director of communications and business development. “It’s to what degree will it affect us,” he said. •
