Vancouver's Public Space Blog reports:

You may have read that Sears is closing its downtown Vancouver store, located in the block bounded by Howe, Granville and Robson. They’ve had the remainder of their lease bought out by property-owner Cadillac-Fairview for the princely sum of $170million… sort of a severance package of sorts, and one that will apparently allow the struggling retailer to focus its efforts on other stores.

This move certainly has gotten people talking. No sooner did we finish reading up on the story than folks started to contact us to pass along the news.

There’s clearly lots of interest in what will happen next. The Globe and Mail, for one, speculated that US-retailer Nordstrom might take over the site. Design-critic Trevor Boddy, on CBC radio this morning, said he felt that the (dare we say “iconic”) building makes an ideal site for the Vancouver Art Gallery expansion.


CĂ©sar Pelli is not known for designing that bulky thing on Robson but is known for designing The Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.