Sport Chek plans to open its newest flagship store today in one of the most iconic retail locations in Vancouver.
After 10 months of renovations, the FGL Sports brand plans to open at 788 Robson Street, where Chapters had operated a book store for decades.
The 53,000-square-foot, three-storey location replaces a Sport Chek store that was slightly more than 30,000 square feet in Pacific Centre. Holt Renfrew has since expanded into that space.
“This is a magnificent structure,” Sport Chek vice-president of new retail Eric Watt told Business in Vancouver during a guided tour on May 6.
He looked up from the store’s entrance to the wall of glass that faces Howe Street.
“We like all our stores but, of all our stores, this is the most futuristic. We believe that 15 or 20 years from now, this store will still look incredibly relevant. It won’t date itself.”
(Image: Here's the red swoosh in the wall of glass facing Howe Street | Glen Korstrom)
Watt said that the large red swoosh, which represents the Sport Chek brand, was incorporated into the wall of glass.
All of Sport Chek’s five flagship stores (Toronto, Mississauga, Edmonton, Burnaby and now Vancouver) have the checkmark swoosh as a design element although none have it in a wall of glass like the Robson Street store does, he said.
As an added bonus, the checkmark is able to light up at night.
A concierge greets shoppers as they enter.
They then can walk a few steps past the concierge desk to a large touch screen that can help them find the department that they are looking for.
For entertainment, shoppers might linger over a podium that displays a glassed-in Nike running shoe. A hologram gives the shoe a look as though it is on fire.
“We tried holograms first in Toronto and had great feedback from consumers so this will be unique to the Greater Vancouver area marketplace,” Watt said.
As shoppers saunter into the middle of the first floor, they will be in the “training section,” where training shoes are on one side while the other side has devices, such as performance watches, Fitbit devices and GoPro cameras, on display.
(Image: Here's the look of the store from the entrance and the podium with the flaming Nike shoe is visible | Glen Korstrom)
“We partnered with GoPro,” Watt said. “We’re one of the few retailers where they do installs in our stores. We’re one of their biggest partners so they do their shop-in-shops with us. It’s the same thing with Fitbit.
The first floor also has a rest area with plush red chairs facing five different screens.
On the second floor there are large sections for Nike and Under Armour, of approximately 2,500 square feet each.
(Image: Here's the projection of light in the kids section | Glen Korstrom)
“Nike doesn’t own this space,” Watt said while gesturing toward the Nike section.
“We buy and resell products. This is our space and we allow them to come in and build their shop so they can express their brand the way they want to but it is our space.”
Toward the windows is a smaller fan store equipped with Vancouver Canucks, Vancouver Whitecaps, Toronto Blue Jays and other teams’ jerseys and caps.
One table has Barclay’s Premier League jerseys to mark the upcoming UEFA EURO 2016 but there are no Leicester City jerseys visible.
(Image: The escalator to the third floor starts next to a mural of sporting goods | Glen Korstrom)
“You’re not a Leicester City fan are you?” Watt asks with a laugh.
In the kids section of the same floor, there is a light display projected on the floor where it provides the illusion of kicking soccer balls or standing on ice as it breaks.
Touch-screens nearby enable shoppers to enter the Sport Chek e-commerce website.
About 40% of Sport Chek’s sales are for apparel with about 30% footwear and 30% hard goods, which are skis or bikes, Watt estimated.
A tiny fraction of revenue, however, comes from services such as tuning up bicycles or waxing skis.
The service shop faces Robson Street on the third floor.
Other parts of that floor include various motion-detected screens that offer customers various choices. The customer can then simply point to a box on the screen to activate it.
(Image: Screens are omnipresent | Glen Korstrom)
In future years, the plan for Robson Street is to close the block between Howe and Hornby Street to traffic.
It’s a plan Watt likes.
“It will be a spot where people will stop and live,” he said. “It will turn this space into even more of a retail space than it is right now.”
