The City of Prince George will help as much as it can with Pine Centre Mall's search for new tenants and with Sears employees' search for new jobs once the department store closes at the end of this year, economic development officer Melissa Barcellos said.
Much of that work will simply consist of promoting Prince George as a retail centre. But if Pine Centre's owner, Morguard, has a lead on a business interested in filling the spot and wants a sense of what Prince George offers, the city will step up.
"We would provide all of the stats and information that helps them build their business case in locating in that space," Barcellos said.
Making potential investors aware that Prince George's market amounts to more than just those living within city limits will be part of the task.
"Telling the story that Prince George isn't only serving the local market in terms of retail," Barcellos said. "People from all over the area and the surrounding region travel to Prince George to go shopping on the weekends, for entertainment and different activities in the city.
"One of the challenges that we do face is that some of the larger retailers won't locate in the city unless they have a certain population which we don't meet. So we're trying to demonstrate that regardless of our population of residents, we have all these regional tourists coming in and spending money in the city."
More than 60 people in Prince George will lose their jobs with Sears' closure and Barcellos encouraged them to check the Move Up Prince George website (moveupprincegeorge.ca) for job postings and other resources.
The closure of Sears aside, Barcellos said it appears the amount of retail space available in the city is close to fully occupied.
"For example, the Riverpoint mall on Highway 16, with GoodLife Fitness and several different restaurants and Party City, that's a brand new development that I believe is full at this time," she said.
"Pine Centre looks to be mainly full, Spruceland as well. The Highway 16 corridor is essentially fully developed with all of the car dealerships, Riverpoint Landing, Costco-Winners-Best Buy area."
The one exception is Parkwood Mall where a reported 34,000 square feet of space is available over a number of spots.
As for the downtown core, Downtown Prince George vice-president Kirk Gable said 25 new businesses had opened in there in the last two years and suggested the vacancy rate for street-level retail is probably lower now.
Another 30,000 square feet will be on the market at the end of the month when hunting and fishing retailer Wholesale Sports closes its Redwood Mall as the chain's owner, United Farmers of Alberta Co-operative Ltd., pulls out of the business.
Prior to Wholesale Sports opening in the city, real estate developer Harry Backlin said he tried to attract U.S.-based Cabela's to a site on O'Grady Road.
The property will now be home to two six-story apartment buildings after narrowly winning city council's approval on Monday night.
Backlin said Cabela's backed away over concern the region's market was not big enough but the chain, which has stores in Nanaimo and Abbotsford, could reconsider.
"Who knows? Now, they just may take a look at it," Backlin said.
