Ready for its close-up: Rear of Midtown Plaza getting some love under $80M reno plan

It's time for Midtown Plaza's back half to become front and centre.

That's the major takeaway from the updated $80-million renovationplans shared by Saskatoon's largest mall on Wednesday.

Not only will the rear of the downtown mall be home to the city's first Mountain Equipment Co-op, as announced Tuesday.

But newly revealed plans for the larger mall renovation show a vastly transformed back half of the shopping centre facing busy Idylwyld Drive.

The former Sears building currently a brutalist concrete slab lined with blockyoutcroppings willbecome a sleeker, window-strewn complex.

The second floor will be home to a new food court with room for 16 tenants.

The main floor will be subdivided into at least a dozen spaces.

No retailers have signed leases for first-floor space yet, said Terry Napper, the Calgary-based manager of the Midtown Plaza.

But Napper said MEC's announcement that it will open a store in late May 2020, in the space currently taken up by the mall's existing food court, is "quite a statement."

Saskatoon Mayor Charlie Clark agreed that MEC's arrival bodes well for the mall, especially given the departure of its anchor tenant, Sears, earlier this year.

"When Sears went down, there [was] a question mark: 'OK, what's the future of Midtown going to look like?'" said Clark.

"[We want] to make sure that the engine and heartbeat that Midtown has represented is able to help with the redefinition and rejuvenation of our downtown."

• With Sears headed for exit, what will replace Midtown Plaza's 2nd biggest tenant?

Clark, who grew up in B.C. whereMECis based, reminisced about his first purchase from the store in 1993: a backpack he said served him well during a six-month backpacking trip.

"I should have brought it with me," he said.

George Bevan, MEC's director of store development, said the co-op has 60,000 members in Saskatchewan, including 25,000 members in Saskatoon, despite not having a brick-and-mortar location in the province.

"It's a really good baseto build off of," said Bevan.

The Saskatoon MEC store, measuring 20,000 square feet, will cost between $2 million and $3 million, Bevan said.

MEC won't benefit from $2.8Mtax break

This past summer, city councillors approved a five-year, $2.8-million tax abatement for the Midtown Plaza renovations.

• Midtown Plaza plans $80M in mall renos, asks for $2.8M tax break

Napper said Wednesday that none of the savings from that abatement will be used to cover costs related to MEC's move into the current food-court space or any renovations (such as the months-long overhaul of the main mall concourse) that predated the June announcement about the $80-million overhaul.

The new MEC store will include a bike shop and reside in a mall that's already home to a Sport Chek.

"Sport Chek is probably happy that Mountain Equipment is coming to Midtown," said Napper. "Better off to have them adjacent to the Sport Chek store because, to be honest with you, it will compliment their sales as well."

Napper added that negotiations to bring MEC to the mall did not require a non-compete clause.

Sport Chek itself declined to comment.

'Easy access' from street is key: MEC

Plans for the rear half of the mall also include new landscaping along Idylwyld Drive, plus a new back entrance flanked by a new coffee shop (which one is still to be determined).

The plans come as the city hopes to make Idylwyld Drive more pedestrian-friendly by adding multi-use pathways along the busy corridor, which may include separatedlanes for cyclists.

"Our priorities are to do with easy access," said MEC's Bevan, adding that cyclists are a key part of the company's demographic.

The city's Imagine Idylwyld plan also contemplates reducing the pedestrian crossing time at the intersection of Idylwyld and 20th Street the gateway between the downtown core and the adjacentRiversdale area to one minutefrom two minutes.

• OPINION: Idylwyld revamp designed for more than just cars which is a good thing

Randy Pshebylo, the executive director of the Riversdale Business Improvement District, said he supports that reduced crossing time.