Several marquee retailers are eyeing the former Nordstrom department store space at the Rideau Centre, a prominent local real estate broker says – but it will likely be at least a couple of years yet before any new occupants are open for business.
Candice Lerner-Fry, head of the retail leasing division at Marcus & Millichap, says Rideau Centre owner Cadillac Fairview is in talks with major fashion and household merchandise brands that are looking at renting some of the two-storey, 157,000-square-foot space formerly occupied by the Seattle-based retail giant, which pulled out of the downtown mall more than a year ago.
“They’re all big names,” Lerner-Fry said of the potential new tenants, adding there’s enough interest in the vacant real estate that filling all of it likely won’t be a problem.
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“I don’t know which way (Cadillac Fairview is) going to lean,” she added. “It will all depend on dollars and cents.”
But regardless of who ends up taking over the former department store site, curious consumers will probably have to wait a while before they can check out Nordstrom’s replacements.
The site will likely be subdivided to accommodate more than one new tenant, Lerner-Fry noted, and the renovation process likely won’t begin until deals are signed.
This week, Cadillac Fairview told the veteran broker the space probably won’t get backfilled until at least the summer of 2026.
“It’s just the time that it takes to do such a big (conversion) from one retailer to multiple retailers,” Lerner-Fry explained.
Cadillac Fairview has been tight-lipped about what might replace Nordstrom and did not reply to a request for comment from OBJ this week.
But Toronto-based retail analyst Bruce Winder said the commercial real estate giant’s other malls across Canada that also lost the U.S.-based department store as a tenant could offer some clues.
At the Eaton Centre in downtown Toronto, for example, Cadillac Fairview is replacing Nordstrom with three new tenants: Quebec-based department store Simons, local Italian restaurant chain Eataly, and the Nike Store, which relocated from another part of the mall into a “much larger and more experiential” space, Winder noted.
However, the tenant mix in Ottawa will almost certainly be different. Simons is already firmly entrenched in the Rideau Centre, occupying 100,000 square feet of space over several floors in the eastern portion of the mall. Nike also opened a store in the shopping centre just a few years ago.
But there are plenty of other retailers catering to upscale shoppers such as those coveted by Simons and the like that might be interested in moving in, Winder noted in an interview on Thursday afternoon.
“There are all kinds of opportunities out there – everything from premium car dealerships to new entrants into Canada from Europe or Asia that want to build a presence,” he said. “Anything goes these days. Landlords are just looking for tenants who’ll bring people into the mall, pay the rent and drive sales.”
Downtown malls such as the Rideau Centre have “skewed toward premium brands” in recent years in an effort to generate more revenue per square foot, and that trend will likely continue when the new tenants for the Nordstrom space are unveiled, he added.
“It’s a lot easier to make the numbers work when you’re selling a high-end product,” Winder said. “Your average ticket is very high, whereas you have to sell a lot of a low-priced item to make the math work to pay the rent. I wouldn’t be surprised to see some fairly premium, affluent brands take over some of that space.”
And as Lerner-Fry suggested, Winder said it’s a good bet it will require multiple tenants to fill the hole left by Nordstrom’s departure.
“It probably won’t be one retailer who takes the whole space. It’s just too big a footprint.”
