Latest news with #Bay
The Province
a day ago
- Business
- The Province
This Day in History, 2025: After 138 years in downtown Vancouver, The Bay closes
Current building was built in four stages between 1913 and 1950 The Hudson's Bay store at 674 Granville Street in downtown Vancouver, May 28, 2025. There has been a Hudson's Bay store in downtown Vancouver since Jan., 17, 1887, when the city was less than a year old. But it will end June 1, when the landmark Bay store at Granville and Georgia will close. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. THIS CONTENT IS RESERVED FOR SUBSCRIBERS ONLY Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Exclusive articles by top sports columnists Patrick Johnston, Ben Kuzma, J.J. Abrams and others. Plus, Canucks Report, Sports and Headline News newsletters and events. Unlimited online access to The Province and 15 news sites with one account. The Province ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition to view on any device, share and comment on. Daily puzzles and comics, including the New York Times Crossword. Support local journalism. SUBSCRIBE TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Exclusive articles by top sports columnists Patrick Johnston, Ben Kuzma, J.J. Abrams and others. Plus, Canucks Report, Sports and Headline News newsletters and events. Unlimited online access to The Province and 15 news sites with one account. The Province ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition to view on any device, share and comment on. Daily puzzles and comics, including the New York Times Crossword. Support local journalism. REGISTER / SIGN IN TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account. Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments. Enjoy additional articles per month. Get email updates from your favourite authors. THIS ARTICLE IS FREE TO READ REGISTER TO UNLOCK. Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments Enjoy additional articles per month Get email updates from your favourite authors The masses flooded into the store for The Bay's bankruptcy sale in recent weeks, either to hunt for bargains or just to take a look around at the last days of a Canadian institution. 'It's sad, honestly,' said shopper Niels Billou. 'It's an iconic part of Canadian history, part of the founding of this country. Everybody who grew up in Canada has gone and bought something from the Bay, whether it's socks or bed sheets or the blankets.' Sharon Best remembered getting her picture taken with Santa at The Bay when she was a child. 'It's such a shame,' she said. 'It's the last of the department stores, but it's also the oldest of the department stores.' 'The High Street is dying,' said Sarah Bromfield. 'Retail is kind of dying and the internet taking over.' Stay on top of the latest real estate news and home design trends. By signing up you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc. Please try again This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Bromfield picked up a bust of a female mannequin at the sale for $100. She had a lot to choose from: there were hundreds of mannequins left all over the store, with or without faces, heads, arms or legs. Male mannequins at the Hudson's Bay store in downtown Vancouver. Someone has arranged them so they resemble the workers in the famed 1932 photo Lunch Atop a Skyscraper at the RCA building in Rockefeller Center in New York. A quartet of male mannequins were doing handstands on the sixth floor, near a quintet of mannequins arranged like the famous photo of construction workers having lunch on a steel beam high above the streets of New York in 1932. The sixth floor was officially closed when a reporter visited Wednesday, which made it a bit eerie. The floorplates are 75,000 sq. ft., and the virtually empty space made the large building seem even more vast. The sixth floor holds one of the building's coolest features: an arched steel and glass skylight that was constructed for a restaurant in the 1920s. The skylight is above a wooden floor where tables could be removed for dancing. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. The chandeliers for the skylight resemble antlers, a play on The Bay's coat of arms, which features a pair of elks flanking a crest with a red cross, four beavers and a fox on top. The sixth floor skylight at the Hudson's Bay store at 674 Granville Street in downtown Vancouver, May 28, 2025. Photo by John Mackie / Postmedia The company motto at the bottom is 'Pro Pelle Cutem,' which translates as 'a pelt for a skin' which points to the company's fur trading roots in 1670. Alas, a trio of white moose mannequins were already sold Wednesday and awaiting pickup. There didn't seem to be any Bay blankets left, either. In fact, most of the store's stock was already sold this week — only three floors and the basement were still open. But the clothes that were left were doing a brisk business, and the jewelry department was positively rockin'. Moose mannequins at the Hudson's Bay store at 674 Granville Street in downtown Vancouver, May 28, 2025. Photo by John Mackie / Postmedia The current Bay store was developed in four stages, in 1913-14, 1925-26, 1926, and 1949-50. The distinctive cream terra cotta on the exterior was used in several Bay stores, including Winnipeg and Victoria, and became identified with the company. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. The first Vancouver Hudson's Bay was a small wooden building at 150 Cordova St. in Gastown. The company moved to a four-storey red brick building at 698 Granville in 1893. The Seymour and Georgia side was the first part of the current building constructed. The address is now 674 Granville. View of the staircase at the Hudson's Bay store at 674 Granville Street in downtown Vancouver, May 28, 2025. This shows the view looking down from the sixth floor. Photo by John Mackie / Postmedia The current building is about 648,000 square feet, and has six storeys above ground, two basement levels and an attic. The main floor is 21 feet (6.4 metres) high, the second floor is 16 feet, 3 inches (5 metres) high, and the remaining floors and basement are 15 feet, 2 inches (4.6 metres). In 1946, the downtown Vancouver store employed 1,300 people in 95 departments. In recent times about 500 people were working in the store. The store sits on prime real estate, and in 2022 The Bay announced a plan to build a 12-storey glass office tower atop the current six-storey store, which would have more than doubled the building size to 1.4 million square feet. The facade of the building would have been saved in the new development, but most of the interior would have been demolished and rebuilt in the project. The glass skylight on the sixth floor was to have been taken apart and reconstructed in the new structure. But demand for office space has slumped, and the 2022 plan seems to be dead. jmackie@ Female mannequins at the Hudson's Bay store at 674 Granville Street in downtown Vancouver, May 28, 2025. Four mannequins doing handstands at the Hudson's Bay store at 674 Granville Street in downtown Vancouver, May 28, 2025. Photo by John Mackie / Postmedia A dog made of cardboard slices at The Bay in Vancouver. Photo by John Mackie / Postmedia A sign at the Hudson's Bay store in downtown Vancouver, May 28, 2025. Photo by John Mackie / Postmedia The most expensive item at the Hudson's Bay store in downtown Vancouver on May 28, 2025 appeared to be a $7,000 wooden sleigh. Photo by John Mackie / Postmedia Niels Billou outside the Bay's downtown Vancouver store, May 28, 2025. Sharon Best (left) and Sarah Bromfield with a mannequin Bromfield purchased at The Bay's bankruptcy sale in downtown Vancouver, May 28, 2025. Read More News BC Lions Vancouver Whitecaps Vancouver Canucks News
USA Today
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- USA Today
Raiders P AJ Cole had the most AJ Cole big ticket purchase upon signing his new deal
Raiders P AJ Cole had the most AJ Cole big ticket purchase upon signing his new deal Anyone who has spoken to AJ Cole or watched one of his press conferences knows he's a character. The good kind. Not the weird wear-a-power-rangers-mask-to-training-camp, or punt-bags-of-pasta-at-the-grocery-store kind of character. He's just a funny, good natured dude. He also happens to be the best punter in the NFL. And this week he was rewarded by the Raiders for it when they made him the NFL's highest paid punter on a four-year extension. Most players when getting a big new contract will treat themselves to a big ticket item of some kind. Cole is no different. Although his choice of big ticket item may be quite a bit different. And it's so him. "All of my plants died, so we just re-landscaped our yard," Cole said of his big spend. "So, shout out to Antonio, Moon Valley Nurseries. So, I'm really excited, pretty excited that I get to stay here and watch those plants grow up. Because I don't know if you guys have bought plants before, but they're really, really expensive. And so, yeah, that was the big-ticket purchase, a couple of new queen palm trees in the backyard and a couple sweet Bay laurels on the side." He's just so wholesome it's ridiculous. The Raiders are very lucky to have him. Both for his on-field prowess and his off-field character.
Hamilton Spectator
2 days ago
- Business
- Hamilton Spectator
Hudson's Bay heads into last days of sale with lots of shoppers, little merchandise
TORONTO - Hudson's Bay headed into its last weekend of liquidation sales with its Toronto flagship teeming with shoppers looking for one last treasure from the department store. Even before the Yonge Street location opened Friday, shoppers waited in front of its doors, exchanging hopes for what they'd find inside and strategizing how to beat the competition. When they made it in, they found large swaths of the store had been emptied out, but plenty of deals still remained. There were $10 Levi's jeans for men, $5 corsets for women and $15 pajama sets. There was also a seemingly endless array of furniture and fixtures for sale, including plastic fruit, decorative books, stacks of woven baskets, holiday gift boxes and row upon row of mannequins. Travette Banfield picked up a bag of discounted inserts that will hold up the boots always falling over in her closet and others to stretch her and her kids' shoes, but her best find was a $50 mannequin that came in her skin tone and had wooden arms and adjustable fingers. She wanted to use it to model outfits for social-media videos she makes but was struggling to balance the mannequin in her shopping trolley. 'We're going home on the TTC like this,' she said, chuckling in the middle of the shoe department. While she joked that she's 'not trying to be a hoarder,' she said she had been to the store earlier in the week, after a friend urged her to go see what Hudson's Bay had left, while they were out for dinner. 'I was in high heels dragging this pot set through the store,' she said, laughing again. She wasn't the only one to make repeat visits to the department store known as Canada's oldest company as it prepares to close all of its locations by Sunday. Many of the shoppers at the flagship on Friday said they had visited several of the 80 stores the Bay operated or some of the 13 it ran under its Saks banners in recent days. They said they made multiple trips because they wanted to find savings but also felt it was important to bear witness to the collapse of the 355-year-old company, which filed for creditor protection in March. 'I had a security guard laughing at me because I've been taking photos the whole time I've been here of just, like, empty areas that are normally filled and have been filled my whole life,' said Alysha Robinson, who was buying decorative white and gold pumpkins and Easter eggs she will use for displays at her cannabis store. 'It's just strange to see it so desolate.' Two floors up, Ares Hadjis agreed. The hollowed out Bay brought a sense of déjà vu because he worked for rival department store Sears Canada before it shuttered in 2018. 'I'd rather this place were bustling and still good, but I guess it just reflects the changing landscape,' he said while in search of grocery oddities to add to the fake display steaks and cheese he bought at the Bay last week. 'Even I've been getting more things online the last few years, so I guess I've been contributing to this as well.' In court documents, Hudson's Bay placed the blame for its demise on lower downtown store traffic, a tough recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic and the more recent trade war. The trio of challenges made it hard to pay mounting bills and eventually led to layoffs, broken escalators and stores that had to close for days on end because their air conditioning systems were in disrepair. 'I could see it coming but I was always hoping that things would turn around because this is an iconic store,' said Ceciel Wells, who worked at the Bay's Bloor Street location in Toronto for 37 years before it closed in 2022. 'I really could see the writing on the wall, nevertheless it's a sad day.' When she visited the Yonge Street flagship on Friday, she was 'shocked' to see how 'everything is almost gone.' In prior weeks, she had found the Square One store in Mississauga, Ont., teeming with great deals, including heavily-discounted carpets she, her daughter and her friend bought and a $149 Calvin Klein dress she found for $18. Her Friday shopping trip featured far less merchandise to choose from, yet she still managed to nab some marked down clothing for a loved one. For Wells, the bargains were a bonus. The real point of the trip was to see the store and her former colleagues, who gathered informally among racks of picked over bathing suits and dresses, one last time. 'It was a wonderful, wonderful place to work,' she said, 'so I just came here to say goodbye.' This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 30, 2025.
Toronto Sun
2 days ago
- Business
- Toronto Sun
RioCan REIT asks court to put joint venture with Hudson's Bay into receivership: docs
Published May 30, 2025 • 1 minute read Shoppers on an elevator look back at a closed Hudson's Bay store in a mall on March 20, 2025 in Hamilton, Ont. Photo by Katherine KY Cheng / Getty Images RioCan Real Estate Investment Trust is pushing to put a joint venture it owned with Hudson's Bay into receivership. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. THIS CONTENT IS RESERVED FOR SUBSCRIBERS ONLY Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account. Get exclusive access to the Toronto Sun ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on. Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists. Support local journalists and the next generation of journalists. Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword. SUBSCRIBE TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account. Get exclusive access to the Toronto Sun ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on. Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists. Support local journalists and the next generation of journalists. Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword. REGISTER / SIGN IN TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account. Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments. Enjoy additional articles per month. Get email updates from your favourite authors. THIS ARTICLE IS FREE TO READ REGISTER TO UNLOCK. Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments Enjoy additional articles per month Get email updates from your favourite authors Don't have an account? Create Account A court filing from the real estate firm asks the Ontario Superior Court to appoint FTI Consulting Canada Inc. receiver of the companies that span the venture. The filing says RioCan is pursuing a receivership because it thinks that is the best way to protect the venture's stakeholders and maximize value. Receivers are empowered by courts to take control of a company's assets, oversee their liquidation and repay creditors. The Hudson's Bay-RioCan venture was formed in 2015 and is made up of 12 properties the department store chain leases from the partnership. Alvarez & Marsal, a monitor appointed by the court to guide the Bay through creditor protection, says in its own filing that a process to find buyers for Bay leases did not nab any bids for the joint venture or its properties. Read More Crime Sunshine Girls Toronto Maple Leafs Sunshine Girls Toronto Raptors
Toronto Star
5 days ago
- Business
- Toronto Star
Layoffs, logos, leases: What the latest release of Hudson's Bay court docs revealed
TORONTO - Hudson's Bay made a whopping, 590-page court filing late Monday that offers insight into how Canada's oldest company is winding down. Here are some of the new things the document revealed: Trademarks Canadian Tire will get the rights to 350 pages of trademarks and domain names belonging to Hudson's Bay if the $30 million deal the retailers brokered gets court approval. Included in the trademarks are rights to several variations of the multicolored stripe motif, the Hudson's Bay name, its coat of arms, its Distinctly Home brand, its luxury fashion business The Room and its Hudson North apparel line. ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW There are also tag lines like the Zellers 'Lowest price is the law' slogan, as well as 'Shopping is good,' 'More than you came for,' 'Everything under the sun' and 'Bring it home.' Private labels Nordic Fleece, Beaumark Appliances and Black Brown 1826 also make an appearance on the list as do advertising lines like 'Official store of Christmas' and 'the official photographer of growing up.' The domains include website addresses connected to the Bay and its businesses but also and Stripes As part of the intellectual property deal, Canadian Tire will take over a contract the Bay had with Pendleton Woolen Mills, an Oregon-based blanket and clothing maker. The Bay and Pendleton disagreed about the use of some multistripe and 'point' motifs, a 2009 settlement and trademark licensing agreement filed in court shows. To end the spat, Hudson's Bay granted Pendleton a 'perpetual, royalty-free, worldwide non-exclusive trademark license.' Layoffs When the 80 Hudson's Bay and 16 Saks stores close by June 1, more than 8,300 workers will have lost their jobs. ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW The job cuts will leave about 1,000 staff to work two additional weeks to let people pick up furniture and fixtures they bought and help the retailer vacate its properties. After June 15, about 118 employees will remain with 50 dedicated to the company's retail operations, 58 in its corporate division and 10 at distribution centres. Leases After filing for creditor protection in March, Hudson's Bay started looking for businesses wanting to take over its leases. It received 12 offers for 39 leases, including 28 covered by a deal it recently inked with B.C. mall owner Ruby Liu. That deal still needs landlord consent and court approval. Art and artifacts Hudson's Bay has 1,700 pieces of art and more than 2,700 artifacts, including the royal charter that birthed the business. It has court permission to begin exploring an auction of the items but Indigenous communities and some governments fear the pieces up for sale might include sacred or cultural items. ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW Hudson's Bay now says the pieces have been catalogued and government entities, public institutions and Indigenous stakeholders are being invited to sign non-disclosure agreements to view the virtual database. The company has yet to settle on processes that will guide how the auction will run. This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 27, 2025.
