Oshawa mall owner confirms Sears location to be partially demolished, new tenants coming to Bay site

Oshawa Centre owner Primaris REIT has confirmed that the Sears location at the mall’s north end – currently occupied by a popular holiday market on the main floor and a roller-skating rink downstairs – will be partially demolished and redeveloped in 2026 to create “outparcel development/sales.”

It isn’t exactly clear what that means – phone calls and emails to Primaris were not returned – but residential may be part of the future after Oshawa Council approved zoning changes around the property this summer to allow for more housing projects with building heights as high as 22 storeys.

Council is hoping to “prioritize” intensification and higher-density mixed-use development in the area to both attract new investment and satisfy the growing need for housing.

The Sears store closed in 2018 with the liquidation of Sears Canada operations and the site sat vacant until Suso Skate moved in during the summer of 2024, with the popular pop-up earning a one-year extension in April.

That extension was cut short with a termination letter sent a couple of weeks ago, telling the company they had to vacate by January 25.

Suso Skate rollerskating pop-up

There have been temporary pop-ups upstairs – the Classic Holiday Market is enjoying another seasonal run and Spirit Halloween has also used the space – but the former anchor tenant will be empty and waiting on its next incarnation by the end of January.

Changes are coming on the opposite end of the mall as well, as the Hudson Bay location – a major retailer at the mall since the late 1970s – closed its doors in June (like almost all other Bay locations in Canada) following widespread store liquidations that began in March after the company filed for creditor protection.

Primaris’ leasing strategy is to ideally find long-term leases single tenant or multi-tenant configurations for vacant anchor tenant space and the former Bay location at the Oshawa Centre is one of four leases that have received active bids.

No announcements have been made yet.

Primaris – which saw their stock price fall 2.63 per cent last week to $15.15 a share because of their exposure to the store closings – has chosen to call it an “enormous opportunity” to provide  “maximum flexibility” for revitalization through reinvestment and remerchandising, as well as substantial land sales.

“It is an incredible time in the retail property landscape to regain control of these spaces, with a strong landlords’ leasing market and no shopping centre development underway,” Primaris President and Chief Operating Officer Patrick Sullivan said in a news release. “There are many international and national tenants struggling to find expansion space in Canada. Primaris is in advanced discussions with a number of credit worthy retailers, and we expect to enter into agreements in the coming months.”

CEO Alex Avery added that the company has also been able to “regain control of space that has gone many years without investment, giving us the opportunity to revitalize and dramatically improve the productivity of some of the best located, but recently least productive space in our portfolio.”

Primaris is Canada’s only enclosed shopping centre-focused REIT, with a current portfolio totalling 15.6 million sq. ft., valued at approximately $5.4 billion.

The changing retail landscape in Canada has led to numerous mass closures over the years, including Simpson’s in 1991, Woolco in 1994, Kmart in 1998 and Eaton’s in 1999. More recently, Target in 2015, Sears in 2018 and now The Bay in 2025 have said goodbye to Canadian shoppers.

The Royal Charter that granted business life to the Hudson Bay Company

The Hudson Bay stores may be gone but Canadian Tire purchased the brand and products like the famous Hudson Bay Blanket may yet live on as two the nation’s richest families – the Thomsons and the Westons – teamed up to buy the 355-year-old royal charter that created the company for $18 million, with immediate plans to donate the document t to be shared by four museums, including the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto.