Daiso closing Granville store in downtown Vancouver after three years

Daiso closing its Granville Street store in downtown Vancouver after three years

Daiso Japan at 810 Granville Street, Vancouver. (Kenneth Chan/Daily Hive)

Daiso Japan’s store in the Granville Entertainment District in downtown Vancouver will be short-lived.

The store at 810 Granville Street, near the southeast corner of the intersection of Granville and Robson streets, will close on March 24, 2024. It first opened in early April 2021.

This was Daiso Japan’s first company-owned and operated store in Canada, which spanned a 5,000 sq ft retail unit that was previously briefly an Indigospirit bookstore up until early 2019. Prior to the bookstore, it was a longtime location of Aldo Shoes.

However, the Japanese discount store will be opening a new replacement Vancouver location, albeit well outside of the downtown Vancouver peninsula. Daiso Japan has indicated it will open a new location at City Square Shopping Centre, which is located at the northwest corner of the intersection of Cambie Street and West 12th Avenue — just west of Vancouver City Hall and near SkyTrain Broadway-City Hall Station.

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The new store at City Square will be situated on the ground level within an 8,900 sq ft retail space, immediately adjacent to the 2019-opened Sungiven Foods’ flagship grocery store. This represents a substantial expansion of the store size compared to the current downtown Vancouver location.

Sungiven Foods and the future Daiso Japan store take up the mall’s former space for the Safeway grocery store, which has since been subdivided.

The new Daiso Japan store at City Square is expected to open in Summer 2024.

daiso city square shopping centre vancouver

Future space of the Daiso Japan store at City Square Shopping Centre. (Kenneth Chan/Daily Hive)

City Square Shopping Centre at 555 West 12th Avenue, Vancouver. (Kenneth Chan/Daily Hive)

Since opening its first corporate store in downtown Vancouver three years ago, Daiso Japan has also opened locations at Metropolis at Metrotown mall in Burnaby (replacing Le Chateau), Lansdowne Mall in Richmond, and Strawberry Hill Shopping Centre in Surrey.

In 2019, the previous two-storey Daiso location at Aberdeen Centre was converted into the Oomomo brand, which carries a similar Japanese discount store concept. Unlike this previous longtime Daiso franchise location, the recently opened Daiso Japan stores are directly operated and managed by the Japanese company, which has over 5,000 stores worldwide and has expansion plans for the Canada and United States markets.

Daiso Japan did not respond to Daily Hive Urbanized’s request for comment in time for publication.

It is not immediately known if a replacement business is already lined up for the space at 810 Granville Street.

Daiso Japan at 810 Granville Street, Vancouver. (Kenneth Chan/Daily Hive)

It should also be noted that businesses on the 800 block of Granville Street could be on borrowed time, given that most of the city block, owned by Bonnis Properties, is anticipated to be redeveloped into a mixed-use complex with office, retail, restaurant, and entertainment uses.

But there is still new commercial leasing activity within the potential future development site, including last year’s reopening of the expanded Adidas store and the recent lease listings by Martin Moriarty with commercial real estate firm Marcus & Millichap for the 5,600 sq ft ground-level space of The Lennox Pub and the 5,900 sq ft two-storey space of the former Payless Shoes store.

On the other side of the street, Cineplex’s The Rec Room entertainment centre has reached an advanced stage of construction and is now expected to open later in 2024, with exterior work now completed and crews focusing on furnishing the 45,000 sq ft, three-storey venue.

cineplex the rec room granville vancouver march 12 2024 construction

Construction progress on Cineplex’s The Rec Room at 850 Granville Street in downtown Vancouver, as of March 12, 2024. (Kenneth Chan/Daily Hive)

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