Europe's largest outlet mall developer is finalizing a deal with the Vancouver International Airport Authority (YVR) to build a 340,000-square-foot mall on a 30-acre site next to the airport.
"The preferred joint venture partner is McArthurGlen [Group]," YVR spokeswoman Lara Gerrits told Business in Vancouver. "We hope to make an official announcement in the next few months."
The proposed mall would be off Russ Baker Way on Sea Island on federal government land leased by the airport authority. The airport, including the Russ Baker Way site, is within the traditional territory of the Musqueam First Nation.
Gerrits declined to reveal details of the proposed mall, but McArthurGlen CEO Gary Bond told the International Council of Shopping Centres' newsletter Value Retail News (VRN) that he wants construction to start in the second half of this year and be completed by 2014.
"The advantage of Vancouver is that there is no outlet competition," he told the newsletter.
"Vancouver offers a fantastic opportunity in terms of the partner, the catchment, the location, the economic strength of Vancouver and the tourism potential, in particular as the gateway to the Asian consumer."
London-based McArthurGlen has no staff in Vancouver, but Bond said the company plans to build a Vancouver team. His company has developed 20 outlet centres in eight European countries, and the Vancouver mall will likely have similar tenants and design. McArthurGlen communications manager Georgina Power would not connect Business in Vancouver with Bond.
"It shouldn't really be Gary talking about it because it hasn't been signed yet," she told Business in Vancouver from London.
Some of McArthurGlen's European malls are known for luxury brands like Hugo Boss, Prada and Calvin Klein, and retail industry insiders expect that the Vancouver mall will have a similar tenant mix.
"The proposal has gone under the radar quite effectively," said Colliers International retail specialist James Smerdon.
Smerdon helped McArthurGlen respond to a YVR request for proposals to build a retail facility.
He said that part of McArthurGlen's rationale for building the mall in Vancouver is that the city has fewer square feet of retail space per capita than Toronto.
Smerdon's statistics show that Toronto has 24.11 square feet of mall and power centre retail space per person compared with 13.73 square feet in Vancouver.
That disparity will shrink when two new Tsawwassen malls open in 2015. Ivanhoe Cambridge plans to build the 1.2 million-square-foot enclosed Tsawwassen Mills adjacent to Property Development Group's planned 600,000-square-foot Tsawwassen Commons.
Urbanics Consultants Ltd. principal Phil Boname pointed to future mall projects that would compete with McArthurGlen's airport proposal:
•220,000 square feet of retail space planned for PCI Group's 820,000-square-foot mixed use Marine Gateway project;
•ongoing expansion at Fairchild Group's Aberdeen Centre; and
•Jingon International Development Group's proposal to rezone land on Duck Island adjacent to the River Rock Casino so it can build a four-million-square-foot project that would include 1.2 million square feet of retail space.
Boname said they will close the Toronto-Metro Vancouver gap in per-capita retail space. He added that Smerdon's statistics don't take into account street-front retail space, which is more prominent per-capita in Vancouver than it is in Toronto.
But Smerdon said Metro Toronto will continue to have more per-capita retail space in malls and power centres than Vancouver for the foreseeable future.
"The larger the metropolis, the more it becomes a destination draw for people from the hinterlands, but it depends on what the surrounding areas are. Vancouver doesn't have the ability to draw in from a wide hinterland area like Calgary, Edmonton, Winnipeg and Toronto do." •
