Saks Fifth Avenue OFF Fifth opening at West Vancouver's Park Royal in 2017

Metro Vancouver’s second Saks OFF Fifth store will be opening at Park Royal shopping centre in West Vancouver in the summer of 2017.

The outlet retailer, an off-shoot of New York City-based Saks FIFTH Avenue, owned by the Hudson’s Bay Company, plans to open a 33,000-square-foot store on the north side of Park Royal.

The OFF Fifth store features 800 fashion brands for both men and women, including emerging designers and recognized fashion names at outlet prices. It should not be confused for the main department stores, which are substantially larger and offer a luxury shopping experience.

It is all part of the mall’s extensive revitalization in design and retailers, which began with a complete retrofit of the south side with a new food court, fashion wing, interior aesthetic upgrades, and the region’s first Simon’s store.

Construction is now well underway on completing a similarly-scaled renewal to the north side to include exterior and interior improvements to match the south side’s new contemporary look. A Loblaws City Market and Steve Nash Fitness Club opened at the mall’s north side earlier this year.

Future phases to the north side will include residential developments on the ground-level parking lots and new public spaces.

Earlier this fall, Metro Vancouver’s first Saks OFF Fifth location, also 33,000 square feet in size, opened at the new Tsawwassen Mills shopping centre. When open, the Park Royal location will be 17th Saks OFF Fifth location in Canada.

Saks Fifth Avenue planning downtown Vancouver flagship

Saks Fifth Avenue also has plans to open a flagship department store, similar in size to Nordstrom, in downtown Vancouver. Two such stores opened in Toronto earlier this year: a flagship 170,000-square-foot location within the 850,000-square-foot Hudson’s Bay flagship store at Toronto Eaton Centre and a 130,000-square-foot location at Sherway Gardens.

The retailer will be opening at least two more department stores over the next two years. A 115,000-square-foot store will open at Chinook Centre in Calgary in January 2018, and this will be followed by a 200,000-square-foot flagship store within the 650,000-square-foot Hudson’s Bay flagship store in downtown Montreal.

An official announcement on the downtown Vancouver flagship store location could be made sometime next year, a source who wished to remain anonymous told Daily Hive. It is expected that the Vancouver flagship will take up a similar store-within-store concept by occupying a significant portion of the 637,000-square-foot Hudson’s Bay flagship, with a main entrance on the Seymour Street side of the building.

Other Saks OFF Fifth locations are also planned for other shopping centres in the region, including potentially Oakridge Centre and Metropolis at Metrotown.