Edmontonians ‘not surprised’ as City Centre mall faces uncertainty

The company that owns Edmonton's City Centre mall is in receivership, making the mall's future uncertain. CTV News Edmonton's Nav Sangha reports.

With dozens of stores shuttering their doors in City Centre mall over the last few years, the news of the mall going into receivership does not come as a surprise to many.

“It’s been apparent for some time that the asset owners were really, really stretched and just not in a position to appropriately invest in the property,” said Puneeta McBryan, CEO of the Edmonton Downtown Business Association.

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While most shopping centres have struggled to come back from the COVID-19 pandemic, McBryan says City Centre has been experiencing challenges since well before then.

“Downtown shopping centres in general, let alone one as huge as ours, have been really challenged,” McBryan. “Suburban shopping centres have really kind of taken over when it comes to where mall shoppers want to be.”

Edmonton City Centre Inc. (ECC) also owns three attached office towers – TD Tower, Oxford Tower, and Centre Point Place as well as building parkades – amounting to over a total of 1.4 million square feet in retail and office space.

As of Monday, auditing and consulting service PricewaterhouseCoopers Inc. (PwC) is in charge of all the assets formerly held by ECC, according to a court order.

This means PwC can take possession and exercise control over City Centre and what becomes of it. Typically, a receiver is appointed to take possession of and sell or liquidate assets in order to repay an outstanding debt.

According to court documents, Montreal-based commercial real estate investor Otéra Capital Inc. submitted the application for receivership.

Retail analyst Bruce Winder said e-commerce has also been eroding the need for malls for years now.

“With Amazon, you can order a package and get it in seven hours … with that kind of convenience, do you really need to go to a mall anymore?” Winder told CTV News Edmonton.

But for City Centre mall, COVID-19 was the nail in the coffin.

Many businesses that lease offices in the area have employees working from home either full time or for part of their work week – this alone has decreased the amount of foot traffic through the mall, said Winder.

“It’s not enough for a mall to break even when you have such a lack of volume.”

Since 2020, the homeless population in downtowns across the country have skyrocketed – and Edmonton is by no means an exception.

“There’s heightened crime downtown,” said Winder. “There’s a lot of folks who are homeless downtown and not enough social programs to go around.”

In 2023, marquee tenant SportChek moved out of the mall, prompting ECC to highlight the safety issues that were discouraging investment.

Before the sporting goods giant left, other long-term tenants Holt Renfrew and The Bay kicked the bucket. The City of Edmonton’s 311 office also moved.

Ted Wright, who works in the nearby Enbridge Centre, said that what’s happening to City Centre mall is a shame.

“It’s a great facility for going to get something to eat, go to the movies,” said Wright. “But given the change in appetite for online shopping, it’s not really a surprise. But still, it’s hard to hear.”

With files from CTV News Edmonton’s Nav Sangha.