Midtown Plaza GM pleased with growth, new retailers

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Midtown Plaza’s general manager says she believes the mall’s growth in 2024 will carry over to 2025 and beyond.

General manager Tara Faris acknowledges that in recent years, traditional brick-and-mortar retailers have seen business declines with the rise and continued growth of online shopping. For malls like Midtown to keep up, they need to focus on providing an overall experience consumers can enjoy, she says.

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“Shopping centres need to stay focused on the shopper experience, being a community hub where people can meet friends, gather, dine, do some shopping and just have an overall connection.”

Faris says 2024 was a successful year for the downtown shopping centre. Mall management is projecting overall sales will hit $191 million for the year — an increase of $5 million, or around 2.7 per cent, from 2023. Productivity per square foot also increased by $66 to $746 per square foot as of Oct. 31.

Faris says the mall has been successful in attracting new retailers.

“We have a very strong leasing strategy that is focused on bringing first-to-market retailers to the city and the province, ones that are not yet doing business in our city,” she said.

In the final quarter of 2024, Midtown brought in eight new retailers, including the first-to-market Levi’s store, Rocky Mountain Soap Company, and Mountain Warehouse — the largest location the outdoors brand has opened outside the United Kingdom.

Among the stores scheduled to open in 2025 is JD Sports, a popular European sportswear company that prominently features brands such as Nike, Adidas, Vans and UGG and has been a staple in locations such as West Edmonton Mall.

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The new retailers are among roughly 140 stores at Midtown Plaza, which remains Saskatchewan’s largest retail outlet.

According to Urban Reform Realty’s Toran Eggert, Midtown since 2023 has seen a 10-per-cent increase in sales productivity and filled more than 70,000 square feet of vacancy.

Faris said when it comes to searching for new tenants, the management also looks at what is going on elsewhere.

“Typically what we would do is we would look at retailers in different markets that are performing well, similar markets as our own,” she said.

To help identify potential new retailers, mall managers also try to get feedback from shoppers about what kinds of retailers they would like to see.

According to the management, foot traffic through Midtown in 2024 was approximately 4.1 million visitors. Faris said that’s another indicator of year-over-year growth.

The increase has continued during the current holiday season compared to the same time in 2023, Faris added.

“Our traffic numbers are trending up over November and early December of last year, so all indications are positive. Certainly, Black Friday was really successful. We had a seven per cent lift,” she said.

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“We’re proud to have welcomed so many incredible retailers into Midtown in 2024, and there’s more to come in 2025.”

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