With the closure of Librairie Boyer in the Châteauguay Regional Centre, yet another unit stands empty in the shopping centre. Whilst many feel that the Regional Centre is being allowed to fall into disrepair, Groupe Mach, one of the site’s co-owners, insists that this is not the case. The aim remains to consolidate the existing offering, “but it takes time”.
Translation Amanda Bennett
Véronique Alepin, Vice-President of Development and Design at Groupe Mach, acknowledges this: the Châteauguay shopping centre “lacks an internal buzz. It’s as if we’re living in two different eras.” She explains that since the pandemic, customers have been less interested in an enclosed shopping centre with a long corridor. The trend is instead towards shops with doors opening onto the street.
“That’s more or less the direction we’ve tried to take with the refurbishment of our premises. We’ve worked with a few key players, such as Dollarama and Ardène. There are changes on the horizon,” she says.
How does redevelopment work?
At present, the centre has two ‘major attractions’ at either end: the Winners store and the Super C. The arrival of Winners in Châteauguay and the shops in the car park have breathed new life into the retail site, but a large part of the mall remains vacant.
“We’re always on the lookout for opportunities, because the goal isn’t to keep these spaces vacant – that isn’t profitable for us,” she emphasized.
When Winners set up shop in Châteauguay, the city met with the owners of the Regional Centre to inform them that it would support them if they wished to carry out a complete redevelopment of the site, for example by adding a mix of residential and commercial uses. “We looked into it, but we didn’t take it much further because we have obligations towards our tenants,” explained Ms Alepin. She pointed out that Super C and Winners, for example, have options in their leases regarding the car park. The Regional Centre must guarantee them a minimum number of parking spaces, which, for the time being, is limiting redevelopment.
The Mach Group and Brasswater are continuing to work on attracting new tenants. “It takes a long time to get all this off the ground. Discussions are underway with potential tenants, but they too have their own development plans, budgets and target opening dates.”
