Preparing for the American invasion
Fashion retailer André Schad, with a little help from an unlikely source, is expanding,
A Sussex Drive businessman is stepping up — literally — to meet coming competition from high-end U.S. fashion retailers.
And he’s getting help from what some might consider an unlikely source — his federalgovernment landlord.
André Schad, owner of two boutiques that carry his name plus tony footwear store Wolf & Zed, all on the Sussex row considered Ottawa’s most exclusive shopping strip, is opening walls between his shops and expanding upward with new second-floor retail space.
When the one big store opens — later this month, he hopes — Schad will have nearly 7,000 square feet of sales area. That’s well beyond boutique territory.
“We want to be seen to be competitive,” he explains. “There’s a new marketplace coming to Ottawa.”
Most prominent among the pending arrivals is Nordstrom, the Seattle-based fashion chain that will open a twolevel, 157,000-square-foot outlet in Ottawa’s downtown Rideau Centre in 2015. Quebec’s Simons is also eyeing a Rideau Centre location.
And the venerable (if now American-owned) Hudson Bay Co. is not only strengthening its mid- to higherpriced fashion lineup, but last month acquired Saks Inc. and is expected to bring the famous U.S. retailer to Canada within a year.
On Sussex, two blocks north of the Rideau Centre, Schad has taken over a vacant storefront between two of his shops. In this new space, once home to the iconic Le Hibou coffee house, is a broad staircase that leads to what will be his second-floor menswear section. With exposed brick walls and thick, Ottawa Valley hemlock beams, it will look like an industrial loft.
Tanned and energetic, Schad leads a reporter through the project, pointing out unexpected features revealed as the plaster came down. There’s a huge steel X-frame added at some point to brace the structure, and a bricked-over portal to a now non-existent second floor of a neighbouring building. Schad will leave the doorway sealed. “It’s an eight-foot drop,” he says. “But we’ll do something with it.”
An even bigger surprise has been the willingness of the National Capital Commission, which owns the heritage row, to approve the interior changes and work with the businessman on repairs to the historical, arched-brick facades.
“There have been a lot of changes at the NCC for the better,” says Schad. “There have been times when we’ve agreed to something verbally and within three to four days I’m looking at it on paper. That would rival anything in the private sector.”
As a major landlord in the capital region, the NCC has long been criticized for bureaucratic delays and an uncaring attitude. It was especially vilified in 2012 when bookstore Nicholas Hoare said it was closing its Sussex Drive store because the NCC wanted to hike the rent by 93 per cent over five years.
With bookstores everywhere heading to the retail remainder bin, that may have just been a convenient excuse. But the NCC, with a policy of not discussing individual contracts, could only respond that it was bringing the rent to market rates, and the episode cemented the agency’s reputation as heartless.
If the commission is less likely now to throw its weight around, that could be because it has far less heft.
The Conservative government has cut back its staff and its mandate, relieving it even of responsibility for the capital’s Canada Day party.
Mary Ann Waterston, the agency’s director of real estate management, says the NCC is in tune with the needs of tenants in a changing retail scene, and she insists there’s been no big shift in approach.
It leases properties through a private contractor, Del Management Solutions Inc., under a five-year deal that expires next year.
However, a newly standardized and streamlined leasing system is “one of the things we have done that probably has speeded up our process,” she says.
Still, the agency, which has 40 commercial properties in the Sussex and ByWard Market area alone, will never be able to manoeuvre like a private landlord.
“We are not a private landlord per se, we’re a public landlord, and in which case there are levels of approval that you wouldn’t necessarily have in the private sector.”
With no red tape to resolve, André Schad is focused on his retail challenge.
His says his clothing sales have been rebounding in Ottawa’s uncertain post-recession economy and “the shoe business has been incredibly strong.”
Beyond high-end brands and hip decor, his strategy to meet the border-crossing competitors is to offer services and attractions — from a refreshment bar to children’s activities to private shopping parties — to richen the experience.
There could be concerts, too, as a salute to the Le Hibou connection. “We’re going to be very event-driven.”
If Schad has a lament, it’s that Ottawa’s municipal government doesn’t show businesses in his district the same support as his federal landlord.
Westboro gets free parking and cobblestone walkways, he notes, while the Sussex and Market area that is the city’s biggest commercial tourist draw gets plain concrete walks and ticket-dispensing bylaw officers.
Of course, he knows what they say about city hall.
But didn’t they once say the same about the NCC?