Giant Saks outlet opens downtown in 2018
Saks Fifth Avenue is coming to Ste-Catherine St.
Three years after its blockbuster acquisition of U.S. luxury retailer Saks for $2.9 billion (U.S.), Hudson’s Bay Co. announced Thursday it will open Quebec’s first Saks Fifth Avenue location in the downtown Bay building on Ste-Catherine W., with the opening scheduled for the fall of 2018 after extensive, multi-milliondollar renovations that will be done without shutting the existing store.
Saks’s main entrance will be on de Maisonneuve Blvd., and it will share four of the building’s seven floors with The Bay.
The two-stores-in-one concept already has been tried at a Bay store in Toronto since February, and has proved “extremely successful,” Hudson’s Bay president Liz Rodbell said.
Hudson’s Bay acquired more than 100 Saks Fifth Avenue and Saks Off 5th stores in the 2013 deal, but none were in Canada. It opened the first two Saks in Canada in Toronto earlier this year, and another already has been announced for Calgary. But Montreal will the largest Canadian location so far, covering about 200,000 square feet.
About 80,000 of that will be occupied by a “food hall,” offering both a restaurant and food shopping experience.
Rodbell said the “reimagining of our iconic Montreal location is a significant milestone in the evolution of our Hudson’s Bay store, given the importance of the Quebec customer to our business.”
The company is promising “a modernized shopping experience” with designer fashions for men, women and children, a shoe salon and a club with private suites and personal shopping consultants.
Saks Fifth Avenue president Marc Metrick says there’s more to the chain than product. There’s also service, environment and experience.
“We are doing lots of great things to continue to build the in-store experience,” Rodbell said. “We’re in it for the long term.”
Metrick said Montreal was “definitely one of our very first choices” when it mapped out its Canadian entry strategy for Saks. “We’re excited to say we’re finally coming.”
He said “shoppers here are known for their impeccable style and we’re confident that Saks’ superior designer merchandise and exemplary customer service will be as well received here as it has been across Canada.”
The chain also has other Canadian cities in its sights. “I don’t see a 30-store opportunity here, but there are a few more markets that certainly are ready,” Metrick said.
In the same week Hudson’s Bay unveiled plans to redo its SteCatherine St. store, Quebec-based clothing chain Maison Simons made known its intentions to renovate its downtown Montreal location in the next few years.