September 10, 2014

Winnipeg's first H&M location opens today at Winnipeg's Polo Park Shopping Centre. The long awaited 25,000 square foot store is located off the mall's Centre Court, in a wing anchored by Hudson's Bay. Several retailers were relocated to make room for H&M.

At 25,000 square feet, Polo Park's H&M is one of Canada's largest. As a comparison, Canada's largest H&M store measures 33,057 square feet at the Toronto Eaton Centre. The second-largest is West Edmonton Mall's 31,700 square foot location, which recently renovated to include Canada's first H&M Home Store.

We initially expected Polo Park's H&M to open in part of a former Zellers store space, and we were incorrect with that assumption. The Zellers space has been subdivided into multiple CRU's and will include retailers such as Pandora, Anthropologie, Fossil, Disney, Nine West, Urban Outfitters, Thomas Sabo, Mexx, Sunglass Hut, Bench and Swarovski, among others. The expansion opens this fall.

H&M currently operates 70 Canadian locations coast-to-coast, according to its website. It recently celebrated 10 years of operations in Canada. Canada's first H&M store opened on March 11th, 2004 at Toronto's Fairview Mall. The 12,000 square foot store was met with much fanfare and a week later its second Canadian location opened at The Promenade in Thornhill, just north of Toronto. Canada's largest H&M location opened in the fall of 2004 at the Toronto Eaton Centre.