Retail giant Target has no plans to move in on its Lynn Valley Zellers site
American retail giant Target won’t open a store on its North Vancouver property when Zellers moves out next year. But beyond that, the Minnesota-based discount brand is keeping pretty tight-lipped about the Lynn Valley lease it bought last year.
In September, the Target Corporation announced it would open between 125 to 135 new stores across the country by the end of 2013, in the company’s first-ever expansion outside the U.S.
The new stores would open in former Zellers outlets as part of a lease-purchase deal between Target and Canadian discount retailer, Zellers Inc., a subsidiary of the Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC).
Among the 220 Zellers store leases bought was the current Zellers location in the Lynn Valley Centre mall.
But on July 12, when Target announced its first 127 Canadian store-openings by the spring of next year, North Vancouver wasn’t on the list.
Instead, the Zellers at 1175 Lynn Valley Rd. will close on March 14, 2013, costing approximately 100 people their jobs.
“For those sites that were not listed, they are either opening beyond 2013, have been sold to a retailer or are going back to the landlord,” Target Canada spokeswoman Lisa Gibson said in an email to The Outlook.
Another round of Target openings for spring 2014 will be announced “later this year,” she added.
On July 26, HBC spokeswoman Tiffany Bourré announced the company would close some 64 remaining Zellers stores across the country, explaining that “continuing to operate the Zellers banner in its current form was not viable, particularly given the geographic footprint of the remaining locations.”
Bourré added that some store locations could remain open under a different name post-2013, but no such agreements had been made yet.
“Zellers is considering options for certain locations including potentially rebranding some stores, which will result in certain stores remaining open for the foreseeable future,” Bourré said.
Zellers was founded in 1931, when Walter P. Zeller bought the 14 Canadian locations of American retailer Schulte-United in Southern Ontario.
Over the years, the company expanded to become Canada’s second-largest mass merchandise discount chain with over 200 stores, much of its growth achieved by buying stores from other chains like Woodward’s and Kmart.
Zellers was purchased by HBC in 1978, and the combined company was bought by South Carolina businessman Jerry Zucker in 2006.
After Zucker died in 2008, the Canadian companies were bought by New York-based NRDC Equity Partners.
-with files from Dan Ferguson, Peace Arch News
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