Developers behind the under-construction Oakridge Park shopping centre today revealed nine contracted jewellery tenants for their mall, which is expected to open next spring. Some of the better known brands include Tiffany & Co., Bvlgari and Rolex.
"What the jewellery stores are going to do is bring in wealthy clients," Retail Insider owner Criag Patterson told BIV this morning. "Even just the clustering of brands alone is something that's an attraction to that high-end consumer. That means that they may even fly into Vancouver just to shop."
For Tiffany, this is a return to the site where there was previously a shopping centre that was torn down in late 2020, while Bvlgari is opening its first standalone store in Vancouver, after first opening a store within Holt Renfrew at CF Pacific Centre.
Rolex is slated to open the largest of Oakridge's jewellery stores: a 6,000-square-foot boutique that would be the largest Rolex store in North America, Patterson said.
Patterson said Rolex's store on Alberni Street is nearly 2,700 square feet and is likely the largest standalone Rolex store in North America so the brand's planned 6,000-square-foot store at Oakridge would be its largest store on the continent by far.
Vancouver-based Global Watch Co. (GWC) has contracted to operate the Rolex store as a licensee, much like GWC is also set to run a Tudor jewellery store at Oakridge.
"This is very common with jewellery and much less for fashion these days," Patterson said of franchised or licensee-run branded stores.
Another example of a licensee store is Chaumet, which Patterson said he believes the large Canadian jewellery chain Birks will operate as a licensee.
The four other new jewellers set to open stores at Oakridge include Chow Tai Fook, David Yurman, Jacob & Co. and TAG Heuer, according to Oakridge developers Quadreal Property Group and Westbank Corp.
"Chow Tai Fook is the biggest jewellery retailer in China," Patterson said, adding that he expects the store to have Chinese designs in its jewellery that will set it apart from competitors.
David Yurman's first stand-alone store in the region also follows the brand testing the waters first with a kiosk at the Holt Renfrew store at CF Pacific Centre.
Jacob & Co.'s planned Oakridge store would be its largest store in western North America.
"Jacob & Co. is a shocking one," Patterson said. "There are not a lot of its stores in the world so having a standalone store at Oakridge, to me, is quite remarkable."
He expects Vancouver-based Lugaro Jewellers to operate the Jacob and Co. store as a licensee.
Finally, TAG Heuer is also opening at Oakridge what would be its first standalone store in Vancouver.
"TAG will be a corporate store," Patterson said. "Its prices are in the upper range, getting close to luxury," as many watches would be priced in the thousands of dollars.
Jewellery tenants part of the upscale mix at the future Oakridge Park enclosed mall
News of the new jewellers at Oakridge follows the developers' announcement in February that a wide range of fashion retailers would operate at the shopping centre.
Louis Vuitton, Prada, Brunello Cucinelli, Moncler, Versace and Max Mara are some of the luxury brands set to open in the rebuilt mall, Chrystal Burns, executive vice-president of Canadian retail at QuadReal, told BIV at the time.
The destination, previously known as Oakridge Centre, had been an upscale mall. Its future incarnation is expected to also be upscale, with a 20-per-cent luxury component, Burns said.
Some upscale fashion brands are opening their first stand-alone stores in Metro Vancouver at Oakridge Park: Maison Margiela, Miu Miu, Christian Louboutin and Alexander Wang, she said, adding that those brands would also be considered as having "luxury" products.
The enclosed mall is set to have a range of other stores, which carry clothing, beauty products, jewellery, watches, home décor and lifestyle items.
The plan is for that enclosed mall to be part of a larger 28-acre footprint that includes condominium towers, a community centre and a large park integrated throughout, Burns said.
A second phase of the project is likely to be complete in 2028. It would include what Burns called a "high street," with about 200,000 square feet of outside retail space. The project is also eventually slated to have a residential rental building and an office building.
In 2019, the co-developers' plan for the two-phase project was to have a comparatively small first phase. The plan was to build half the project, with half of the retailers allowed to stay open. Those businesses would then shift to the newly built space so vacated space could be torn down to complete the project’s second phase.
The COVID-19 pandemic changed that plan.
The mall was largely empty in spring 2020 so the co-developers chose to close the retail space completely and bring on phases of the mall that would have been in Phase 2 into Phase 1.
