Montreal City Weblog

Kate 09:31 on 2025-03-15 Permalink Reply  

• PatrickC 09:51 on 2025-03-15 Permalink

  I can’t say I’m surprised. A few months ago, I went into the downtown store for the first time in a long while to buy a simple item: a leather belt. I hoped they would have one of decent quality, and I can remember great sales on the Metro level there in pre-Covid days. The men’s department on that level was even more deserted than the fancy perfume counters on the street level (admittedly, it was a weekday). They had maybe two or three belts hanging in a corner that I found only after getting help from a listless salesperson, and the stock of other items was also minimal. What a contrast with bustling Simons when I went over there afterwards.
  interesting detail in the article, though, about the Bay selling off Saks Fifth Avenue and other high-end stores in the US last year to protect those profitable divisions from going down with the Canadian stores.

• Uatu 15:30 on 2025-03-15 Permalink

  Wow. Another department store gone. It’s going to be interesting to see what happens to the stores especially downtown and at Champlain Mall in Brossard. That’s another anchor store gone in that mall. Decathlon replaced the Sears and that was successful but I wonder if they shouldn’t just convert the Bay into apartments…

• Robert H 16:06 on 2025-03-15 Permalink

  At last, any pretense of reviving The Bay’s stores has been dropped, barring a last minute rescue from a gambling angel with hundreds of millions in liquidity to bestow. I don’t know enough about retail and real estate finance to see how Liz Rodbell can justify her hope that the business can be salvaged. I envision the Phillips Square flagship sitting empty, the windows papered over or boarded up, trash blowing into the entrance alcoves, another vacancy to join the old Holt Renfrew building on Sherbrooke still awaiting ground floor tenants . We have been told again and again that the department store is dead as a business model, but certain variants in certain locations around the world still seem to thrive. In Canada, Simons appears to have found a formula for viability as it opens new stores and refurbishes existing locations. If it finds its current location on Sainte-Catherine to be too cramped or outdated, there’ll probably be space available soon just up the street.

• Meezly 16:58 on 2025-03-15 Permalink

  The Time Out Market has really revitalized Eaton Centre, along with Playbox Arcade and thriving brands like Decathlon, Uniqlo, Sephora, etc. It would be interesting if Simon moved into the Bay building. Hoping the building won’t sit empty and boarded up.

• Ian 22:24 on 2025-03-15 Permalink

  It was Morgan’s before the Bay, something will move in.

• bob 08:05 on 2025-03-16 Permalink

  I think the department store is pretty much dead. Simons is not a department store, it is a clothing store. The kind of place where you can buy all kinds of different things is now geared toward the collapse of family incomes – Walmart, Costco. And because so many malls were planned on the basis of the concept of anchor stores, they are dying too.

  What to do with that huge building (about the same floor space as the Hydro Quebec building)? We don’t need office space, and we don’t need more overpriced condos, and obviously retail is not doing so well. I’m pretty sure that some developer will try to make it into a mixed use thing with retail, offices, and condos. Assuming the various levels of government subsidize it.

• Ian 10:21 on 2025-03-16 Permalink

  Effectively, that was what they were trying to do with Cours-Mont-Royal.

• Meezly 10:46 on 2025-03-16 Permalink

  Although most of its space is devoted to clothing and accessories, and it may not sell appliances nor dining sets, Simons does have a housewares section and is actually considered a department store. I think they opened a store in the basement level by the food court that’s selling furnishings now? So it seems they could do with a bigger space.

  I think if the HBC building is utilized strategically, you could do something similar to Eaton’s Centre, with a food court of local businesses. Escape rooms seem to be popular now, maybe they could take up a floor. Arcades seem to be trending again. A fitness centre? There is so much potential.

• Mozai 13:28 on 2025-03-16 Permalink

  “and we don’t need more overpriced condos” can’t do residential because it’s the law that a sleeping chamber must have a window to the outside. Same problem as converting office-buildings into residential: the floors are big flat blobs and you can only put residences on the outside ring.

• jeather 11:09 on 2025-03-17 Permalink

  Simon’s homewares are fantastic, fwiw.

  The Bay was bought out by American venture capital and, inevitably, failed — though it held on a lot longer than usually happens.