The Hudson’s Bay Company has announced that Montreal will become home to Canada’s largest Saks Fifth Avenue store. The massive four-level flagship will open with the downtown Montreal Hudson’s Bay building at 585 Sainte Catherine Street West in the fall of 2018.

The new Montreal Saks store will span approximately 200,000 square feet, making it larger than the Toronto Saks flagship, which measures 170,000 square feet (including a soon-to-open 25,000 square foot Saks food hall by Pusateri’s Fine Foods and an 11,000 square foot restaurant). Like the Toronto location, Montreal’s Saks will occupy part of the city’s flagship Hudson’s Bay building, with frontage on Boulevard de Maisonneuve.

Unique to the Montreal store will be an 80,000 square foot Quebec-themed Saks Fifth Avenue food hall (including restaurant space), similar to the Pusateri’s at Saks in Toronto. Montreal’s Saks will also feature women’s designer ready-to-wear, handbags, accessories, beauty, men’s, Fifth Avenue Club with private suites/personal shopping consultants and the women’s 10022-SHOE floor.

*Extreme makeover: Current Boulevard de Maisonneuve facade to see overhaul. The stucco exterior will be removed and replaced with a dramatic Saks storefront. Photo: Maxime Frechette.*

*Click photo for interactive Google Map*

The 655,000 square foot Hudson’s Bay building will undergo an extensive renovation that will reconfigure the store layout, redefine departments and enhance the overall shopping environment, according to the company. The store will remain open throughout the renovation process.

Montreal’s Saks will become one of the company’s largest stores. Larger units include locations on Fifth Avenue in New York City (about 650,000 square feet), Houston (Houston Galleria, 210,000 square feet) and two units (separate men’s and women’s stores) in Beverly Hills, California, which together occupy about 260,000 square feet on prestigious Wilshire Boulevard.

*Rendering of the completely renovated Hudson's Bay flagship, fronting onto Sainte Catherine Street West.*

Saks will compete vigorously with another new luxury department store, also opening in 2018, located at the opposite end of busy Sainte Catherine Street West. Ogilvy, owned by Selfridges Group, will merge with Holt Renfrew and expand to about 225,000 square feet, coinciding with Holt’s closing its 1300 Sherbrooke Street West store. Ogilvy is located at 1307 Sainte Catherine Street West, about 800 metres/2,600 feet west of the new Saks Fifth Avenue.

*Click above for interactive Google Map*

Saks Fifth Avenue opened its first two Canadian locations in Toronto earlier this year. A 170,000 square foot flagship opened within the CF Toronto Eaton Centre Hudson’s Bay store on February 18, 2016, and a 143,000 square foot CF Sherway Gardens unit (with an 18,500 square foot Pusateri's) followed a week later. Saks has announced that it will also open a 115,000 square foot Calgary store, at CF Chinook Centre in February of 2018, though there was no mention of a food hall for that location.

*Renderings supplied by HBC.