Zara's new 40,000 sq ft flagship store at Metropolis at Metrotown now open (PHOTOS)

The new Zara flagship store at Metropolis at Metrotown, Burnaby. (Kenneth Chan/Daily Hive)

The high-traffic Zara store at Metropolis at Metrotown shopping mall in Burnaby has doubled in size.

The rebuilt store opened last week, growing from its previous footprint of about 18,000 sq ft to about 40,000 sq ft. In the process, with new features, services, and the adoption of the fast fashion retailer’s latest store design standards and high-tech practices, it has gained a flagship store designation.

See also:

The spacious store interior offers expanded collections for men, women, and children/babies, as well as more change room capacity. As well, customers have the option to use self-scan check-out registers or make a home delivery.

Zara achieved its expansion through reconfiguring and narrowing the common mall corridor, and absorbing several adjacent retail units. The added floor area helps address the severe capacity constraints of this particular Zara location, which is one of the mall’s busiest clothing stores.

Prior to the pandemic, the previous store interior was frequently overcrowded, worn down from its high traffic.

zara metropolis at metrotown expansion burnaby

The new Zara flagship store at Metropolis at Metrotown, Burnaby. (Kenneth Chan/Daily Hive)

The reopening of the store with a super-sized configuration is expected to draw foot traffic to this portion of the second-level mall corridor, which has seen significantly lower foot traffic volumes ever since the 2016 permanent closure of the pedestrian overpass between the mall and SkyTrain Metrotown Station.

Instead, much of the foot traffic has been redirected to the ground level for the street-level crossing to reach SkyTrain. Lower foot traffic, compounded by the effects of COVID-19, also led to the recent closure of the Starbucks in the mall corridor. Zara has also been closed since November 2020 for its expansion project.

The new Zara flagship store at Metropolis at Metrotown, Burnaby. (Kenneth Chan/Daily Hive)

Metrotown’s Zara is now one of the chain’s largest stores in Canada — larger than the 27,000 sq ft, two-level store that reached completion at CF Toronto Eaton Centre in 2015. It is also roughly the same size as the recently expanded H&M flagship store at CF Pacific Centre, which now covers 38,000 sq ft over three levels that were previously the footprint for Holt Renfrew’s original location in the downtown Vancouver mall.

Zara also completed a major renovation of its two-level store on Robson Street in 2020.

This is all part of Zara’s global strategy of spending USD$1.7 billion to upgrade its stores, which will introduce high-tech features, and allow for further integration with its online business.

However, Zara’s parent company, Inditex, also has plans to close between 1,000 and 1,200 stores under various brands through 2022 in response to COVID-19’s impact on consumer demand, and the resulting accelerating shift towards online retail. The Spanish clothing company’s other brands include Massimo Dutti.

The new Zara flagship store at Metropolis at Metrotown, Burnaby. (Kenneth Chan/Daily Hive)

See also: