The 120,000 square foot Target space in Montreal’s CF Galeries d’Anjou won’t be empty for much longer. Co-owners Cadillac Fairview and Ivanhoe Cambridge have announced that the space will become home to three major retailers, with that part of the mall to be renovated to house them.

Two of the three retailers will open this summer, and one will follow in the fall. In August, Hudson’s Bay Company-owned Saks OFF 5TH and TJX-owned Winners will open stores in part of the former Target space, and in October of 2017, Old Navy will join them. Target closed all of its Canadian stores and exited Canada in the spring of 2015.

The 30,000 square foot Saks OFF 5TH will be the first to open in the Montreal region, with two other confirmed stores (downtown Montreal and Premium Outlets Montreal) to open by the fall of 2018, or later.

Target’s space will be subdivided and a new corridor will be added, according to Brian Salpeter, Senior Vice President of Development at Cadillac Fairview. Each retailer will have an exterior entrance, as well as interior mall entrances from a newly built corridor. "These new leases demonstrate our ongoing commitment to providing our guests with best-in-class retail offerings, as well as our constant pursuit of remaining market leaders in a competitive industry,” he said.

Mr. Salpeter explained that the landlords weren’t in a hurry to lease the space after it became vacant, and that a proactive and thoughtful strategy was carefully developed to best serve the market.

While the three new retailers cater to the budget-concious (Saks OFF 5TH and Winners are off-price retailers, while Old Navy targets a thrifty demographic), the mall has a wide range of tenants and a broad range of price points at its retailers. Adding off-price retailers to mainstream malls is more common in Canada than in the United States — south of the border, most Saks OFF 5TH and TJX locations are either freestanding or situated in outlet centres.

(Inside la maison Simons. Photo © Marc Cramer

The massive CF Galeries d’Anjou has seen some positive changes over the past four years. La Maison Simons opened a dramatic 120,000 square foot store in the mall in September of 2013 and at roughly the same time, the mall’s 190,000 square foot Hudson’s Bay store also saw a refresh (as well as the addition of TopShop). The mall began an $86 million expansion and redevelopment in 2013, and improvements have been ongoing.

Sephora is one of the best-in-class retailers to have been added to the centre in recent years, and the mall also saw a beautiful new food hall debut in 2014, near Target. The mall is also home to some notable retailers such as Browns Shoes, Pandora, Rudsak, and soon, Bon Look and Squish Candies will be added to the mix. Retail Council of Canada’s Shopping Centre Study notes that the mall is one of the largest and most productive in the Montreal region.

There will be a bit of space on the first level of the former Target space that won’t be occupied by the three retailers, and Mr. Salpeter noted that several smaller retailers will be housed in that space, with announcements to follow.

Canadian Retail News From Around The Web: June 7, 2017