Retail landscape in downtown Vancouver continues to recover

Long lines for Vancouver's first Jollibee, located in downtown's Granville Entertainment District, in March 2022. (Kenneth Chan/Daily Hive)

Commercial retail units in downtown Vancouver vacated at the height of the pandemic are gradually being reoccupied, with a changeover to new businesses.

A newly released retail storefront report by Downtown Van, formally known as the Downtown Vancouver Business Improvement Association (DVBIA), suggests food and beverage businesses are showing the strongest recovery, with 27 new openings within the city centre between November 2021 and August 2022 — accounting for half of the new openings, and over twice as many businesses opened than the 13 closed over this period.

This is by far the best-performing ratio of all storefront categories.

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The decision by Starbucks to vacate a handful of its downtown locations at the height of the pandemic provided new opportunities for other cafes, bakeries, and food service businesses, including Breka, Trees, Perfecto Cafe, Caffe Artigiano, and Chipotle, which opened a second downtown location at the corner of Robson and Homer streets, just across from Library Square.

A total of 11 new quick food service businesses opened between November 2021 and August 2022, buoyed by the growing number of workers returning to their traditional office workplaces.

The most notable quick food service opening was Metro Vancouver’s very first Jollibee location on Granville Street, south of Robson Street, which saw long lines wrapping around the city block even weeks after its grand opening.

chipotle 398 robson street vancouver homer

Chipotle at 398 Robson Street, replacing Starbucks. (Google Maps)

Between November 2021 and August 2022, 15 retail stores opened and 14 closed, four health and beauty businesses opened and five closed, four entertainment businesses opened and zero closed, and five service-based businesses opened and five also closed.

Some of the notable retail storefront openings were also food related, including Ricardo’s Kandy Korner on Granville Street.

But Granville Street also lost one of its two Adidas stores; the chain closed its Adidas Sport Performance store but retained its neighbouring Adidas Originals store, which reopened in 2017 after renovations.

The DVBIA report states Granville Street’s 200 storefronts are the most number of storefront locations of any street in downtown, but it also has the highest number of unoccupied locations — 42 vacancies as of August 2022.

The vacancies within the Alberni Street luxury retail district remained stable over the period. The lowest vacancies were found along Howe Street, which has a vacancy of just 3% or two out of 68 storefront locations.

This summer, Lululemon reopened its Vancouver flagship store at the corner of Robson and Burrard streets, following an extensive renovation that seamlessly integrated the store into the adjacent former UGG store unit.

970 Robson Street Vancouver Lululemon Flagship store renovation 2022

The newly renovated and expanded Lululemon Vancouver flagship store at 970 Robson Street, Vancouver. (Kenneth Chan/Daily Hive)

Construction to renovate 1035 Robson Street into Vancouver’s first Athleta store by Gap, as of June 17, 2022. (Kenneth Chan/Daily Hive)

According to the DVBIA, there are currently 1,048 storefront locations within its business improvement association (BIA) jurisdiction in downtown Vancouver. This does not include other downtown areas under the jurisdiction of other BIAs, including Robson Street west of Burrard Street, West End, Gastown, and Yaletown.

As of August 2022, 87.3% of the storefronts within DVBIA jurisdiction were occupied with an open and operating business — up from 85.9% in November 2021. In total, 133 storefront locations currently do not have an active business.

The storefront vacancy rate of 12.7% within DVBIA jurisdiction in August 2022 is slightly above the 11.9% vacancy across all BIAs in Vancouver in June 2022, according to the municipal government.

While there was a strong return of tourists to downtown Vancouver this past summer, the volume of office workers is still below pre-pandemic levels due to ongoing semi-remote work arrangements.

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