One year after Sears announced it’s leaving Winnipeg, holes still exist in city malls

It’s been about a year since Sears announced it was closing in Canada, and in Winnipeg, vast blank retail space remains.

So far, Garden City Shopping Centre announced earlier this year that Seafood City supermarket will take up 43,000 square feet of the 92,000 square-foot vacancy left behind when Sears closed up shop there.

But over at CF Polo park, the two floors of retail space haven’t been filled yet, at least publicly.

“Unfortunately right now is very preliminary and under confidentiality with the people we are speaking with. It is very exciting. One of them would be a new-to-Winnipeg concept, I can say that,” General Manager Peter Havens said.

“I can’t say right now if we are going to do one large store or several small stores, or a combination thereof because it’s very preliminary at this point, but it’s going to be exciting.”

As for Kildonan Place and St. Vital Centre, there’s no news to share there.

WATCH: We asked Winnipeg shoppers where they shop, and why

0:31 Winnipeg shoppers choose malls over online

Winnipeg marketing expert Fang Wan said malls need to do more to attract people.

“The challenge is that for our city right now, we have a lot of retail space, at this outlet mall and Polo Park has a lot of space because of the exit of Target. So it’s like we are over-capacity.”

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She suggests making the malls more of a destination.

“Can you think broadly of what kind of service you can provide other than just restaurant, other than just shopping. What about alternative, interesting experience you can provide?”

Wan pointed to malls like West Edmonton Mall and Mall of America as examples.