The Vancouver-based Canadian subsidiary of the U.K.'s JD Sports has been rapidly expanding, including by officially opening a two-level, 16,000-square-foot flagship store at 1040 Robson St. on June 21.
The company operates 33 other stores across Canada but none of those are what JD Sports Canada CEO Gary Ochi told BIV he considers flagship stores.
JD Sports stores tend to be about 8,000 square feet, with some, such as one that recently opened at Metropolis at Metrotown, being 13,000 square feet, he said.
Vancouver-born Ochi said he wants to open 17 more stores by the end of 2026. That includes a store in Ottawa set to open later this week.
"We will do two more Canadian flagship stores, in Montreal and in Toronto, and that will be in the next couple years," he said in an interview.
Of the company's 34 stores, six are in the Lower Mainland: in Abbotsford, Langley, Surrey, Tsawwassen, Metrotown and now Vancouver. There's one Victoria store and one slated to open in Nanaimo in October, he said.
Ochi oversees those stores as well as two sister banners: Size and Livestock.
Both of those brands focus more on lifestyle clothing instead of sportswear, and their locations tend to have smaller real-estate footprints, he said.
One of two Size stores is in Vancouver: on Bute Street near Robson Street. There are three Livestock locations, including one in Chinatown, Ochi added.
He is excited about the Robson Street store in part because it is in a prime spot, on the south side of the street between Burrard and Thurlow streets, where Club Monaco operated for many years. Another source of excitement is around how "interactive" it is, compared with other stores. Digital displays engage shoppers, while there is also a conveyor belt that displays shoes and somewhat resembles the conveyor belts at some Japanese sushi restaurants.
"On Robson Street we have what Nike calls a 3.0 shop-in-shop, so it is a very digital shop, and a shop that is much more immersive and a lot better for storytelling," he said.
"Next Saturday, we have a community run hosted by New Balance that is going out of there. So it'll be a lot more event based as a store."
Ochi has been building out the company's head office since 2023, at 22 East Fifth Ave., where nearly 200 people work.
"We're kind of bursting at the seams, so we have to figure out how to get more space," he said.
Canada-wide, JD Sports has nearly 1,700 employees, including those in stores and in corporate offices in Vancouver and Toronto, he said.
"We're constantly hiring," he added.
JD Sports’ name comes from its founders, John Wardle and David Makin, who opened a store in Manchester, England in 1981.
It is sometimes confused with China's JD.com, but that company does not own any shares in JD Sports even though it carries the same initials.
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