Management at Windsor's Devonshire Mall says there has been plenty of interest in a space occupied by a former anchor store.
Talks on a suitable new tenant for the former Sears store at the mall have been moving forward, according to Devonshire Mall general manager Chris Savard. While mall ownership and management have been open to different ideas for the property, Savard told reporters Wednesday he'd want first and foremost to see a retail operation take that space.
"We hear from our customers regularly that say 'you should get an X-Y-Z store,'" said Savard. "We're having those conversations. There are lots of interests from those particular tenants, and God willing, there's a deal to be done in the coming months."
While being tight-lipped on the kind of potential tenants they have had talks with, Savard did say they have concentrated their efforts on bringing in a retail outlet new to the Windsor-Essex area.
Savard added that the mall sits on probably the busiest stretch of road in Windsor-Essex, so placing a major store in the Sears building would be a no-brainer and make the most sense financially. He said roughly 112,000 vehicles drive past the mall on all sides each day.
Sears had been an original anchor of Devonshire Mall since it opened in 1970. Like most Sears department stores, the location had a portrait studio as well as its own optical, watch repair, and travel departments.
The Sears store, which had two floors of retail space and a basement level for a repair shop and package pick-up, has been vacant since Sears Canada went out of business in the winter of 2018. The last sale at the Devonshire Mall store was rung up in January of that year. At the time, the store employed about 200 people.
Savard said now is the best time in the mall's history to invest.
"I think we're in a good position, obviously," said Savard. "We just finished the renovation of the centre, we've invested $70-million, so there's a lot of positive things happening in the rest of the centre. That's translated well into lots of interest in the Sears property. Probably not a week that goes by when we're not getting decent inquiries."
The renovation includes a brand-new food court on the south side of the mall, a new Metro supermarket, Mandarin Asian buffet restaurant, and new retail stores. The concourses are also getting a major makeover and the centre's outdated entrances are getting a facelift.
Savard said the mall is around 94 per cent occupied and sales across the centre have been the strongest in its 49-year history.