khris
Senior Member
I thought it was beside it, not inside. Basically splitting Hudson's Bay in half.
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- Thread starter Filip
- Start date
prosperegal
Senior Member
Really? I thought it was store within a store. Or are you talking about Bannock, the restaurant on Queen Street? Because O&B not only runs Bannock, but also the catering service upstairs.
khris
Senior Member
I thought that Saks is going in the western side of the building, and Hudson's Bay the east, and there is to be two different entrances.
Skeezix
Senior Member
I believe it's the other way around.
innsertnamehere
Superstar
Just to confuse it some more, my understanding was that the Saks was going to go above the Hudsons Bay, in the old office floors.
khris
Senior Member
I guess without some facts, we'll just have to wait and see.
soundmuseum
Active Member
From what I've been told, Saks will be occupying the Eastern side of the Hudson's Bay building (the Yonge and Queen side). However, they are not taking over all the levels of the building, just up to level 4.
Brands that Hudson's Bay are currently selling will be split between Saks Fifth Avenue and Hudson's Bay. How exactly that will happen is still being determined, but for example, some more high-end brands of the current cosmetics floor will migrate to Saks and others will remain with the Bay. There will be some sort of physical delineation point between the two entities using the path of the bridge from Eaton Centre and the street level entrance below.
In addition, the company is also apparently trying to figure out how to incorporate Saks Fifth Avenue into the current Hudson's Bay Rewards program.
devjohnson
Active Member
I was talking to my friend who works for HBC tonight. He confirmed Saks will only take floors 1-4 on the east side of the building (Yonge/Queen). Apparently a big reason for that was due to the window displays.
marsh
Active Member
Sounds all very confusing...
prosperegal
Senior Member
I suppose that makes sense, considering that Bannock is on the west side and the Arcadian Lofts is higher than the fourth floor. I guess this means that Pusateri's will take over Foodwares?
officedweller
Senior Member
That makes perfect sense - i.e. that there would be some sort of atrium or something at the end of the Eaton Centre bridge with Saks on the left and Hudson's Bay on the right.
I wonder if they are installing a new elevator core for Saks - or is there already one in the east building (and one in the west building?)
There are separate banks of escalators in the east and west ends of the building, if I recall correctly, right?
I still think it would have been cool if Saks had taken the art deco wing on Bay St.
khris
Senior Member
I wonder if they'll keep the PATH connection and subway connection into Saks as well.
officedweller
Senior Member
Conceivably, Cadillac Fairview could create mall "common areas" for PATH within the structure (through a central atrium, then skirting the perimeter of the basement). Some parts of the Food Hall may want to be open for morning commuters, so maybe a concourse like under Vancouver's Hudson's Bay, with small concessions on one side (allowing freedom of extended opening hours) and department store on the other side (closed off by sliding glass doors).
pw20
Active Member
I don't know why... but this whole Saks/Bay merger sounds like a shit show (from an outsider standpoint). What's interesting is that in the US Saks has actually consolidated stores and moved towards a one store per market; chicago has one store, boston has one store etc...
I find it kinda insane that they plan to open 3 stores in Toronto... under-served luxury market or not - I really can't figure out the strategy here. At all and combined with that HBC's recent upscale maneuvers (i.e. what happens to the Room?) - this whole thing seems like a mess from my standpoint.
bAuHaUs
Active Member
I gotta agree....seems that with all of these new luxury entrants, plus Holt's/Simons/Sporting Life recent expansions and new stores that have opened and announced - that the only thing I can think of that they are all banking on is that the luxury retail pie is going to get bigger. If things remain the same, then I believe there's going to be a lot of rolling heads.