10-cent pom poms and $5 single shoes: What's left at Nordstrom liquidation sale, as rumours swirl about its replacement

The Nordstrom flagship store in downtown Vancouver that opened with much fanfare in 2015 will close its doors for good on Tuesday. The months-long liquidation sale is finally coming to an end, and as the hours tick down, shoppers are finding very little left on the shelves.

“(It's) mostly furnishings,” said Lina Thompson, who came to check out the sale Monday.

“Single shoes, if you need one shoe, but yeah, tomorrow is the last day, so it’s pretty sparse.”

The bargain hunter did manage to find a few items during her final visit to the three-level department store.

“A Karl Lagerfeld dress, it was already on sale for $200 and I got it today for $39,” Thompson said. “I bought a Top Shop dress for $7.98, which is incredible. And I bought a body suit that was regularly $400 for $17.”

But she acknowledges most of what’s left is a little strange. CTV News found many single shoes for sale for $5, and bins of small pom poms for 10 cents that were marked down from $12 each.

The final days of the liquidation sale are reminiscent of when Sears vacated the large Pacific Centre space and Nordstrom moved in nearly eight years ago.

“There was so much anticipation and excitement when this opened and people were lined up, so it is the end of an era,” said city Coun. Peter Meiszner.

“But I am really confident this space will be leased out quickly. I’ve been hearing there is a lot of interest from retailers that are looking for space downtown.”

One of the companies rumoured to be interested is Ikea, which opened a smaller downtown store in Toronto last May.

“Yeah, I have heard that rumour, and I did have a chance to go to the urban Ikea in Toronto just a few weeks (ago) while I was there for a conference,” said Meiszner. “I think it would work really well in downtown Vancouver. People wouldn’t need to go to Coquitlam or Richmond to pick up something from Ikea. What you do, it’s more of a showroom, you go and see the furniture that they have, and then you can pick it up at one of several pick up points through the city.”

Thompson thinks Ikea would be a fantastic addition to downtown Vancouver.

“As long as there is parking somewhere, that would be great. It’s always a challenge to get to Richmond, so that would be wonderful,” she said.

Another retailer rumoured to be looking at the Nordstrom space? Eataly, an Italian food marketplace that opened its first international location in Toronto in 2019.

“Eataly has been looking for space in Vancouver for some time,” said retail analyst David Ian Grey.

“The other one I’m hearing about, a little bit of a rumour, is Restoration Hardware, because in other markets they have massive beautiful flagship stores that are showrooms, and they don’t have that here in Vancouver.”

Other contenders could include Simons department store and clothing retailer Uniqlo. Grey also believes it’s possible none of the rumoured stores will end up becoming the tenant.

“I think it may also be something none of us has speculated about. I mean, there are so many wildcards in this,” he said.

Both men believe it's unlikely any one retailer would want the entire 230,000-square-foot space.

“I think we might see the space repurposed and maybe cut up into a few different pieces to allow maybe more than one large retailer in here,” said Meiszner.

While the city councillor and the retail analyst don’t think finding tenants will be a big challenge, they believe it will be at least a year before any new business opens its doors.

“They will need to reconfigure and repurpose the space I imagine,” said Meiszner.

“It’s a unique space in all of Canada right now, and it would be impossible to move in its intact form,” said Grey. “It’s going to transform to a little degree or drastically. We don’t know right now, we can just speculate.”

Whatever moves in to the large Pacific Centre space, Thompson hopes it happens soon.

“It's kind of a touristy area and it’s sad when buildings sit empty, so I hope they do something fairly quick,” she said.