Mark Fenwick has been appointed as the first general manager of Tsawwassen Mills.
Ivanhoé Cambridge made the announcement this month, saying Fenwick will lead a new management team as it assumes daily mall operations and prepares for the grand opening of the landmark retail destination.
Until recently, Fenwick was general manager of Ivanhoé Cambridge's Woodgrove Centre in Nanaimo, the largest enclosed retail centre on Vancouver Island. The company says he has also served on management teams at several other shopping centres, drawing upon 19 years of retail operation experience.
"Over the next year my focus will be on building a professional team that will be the operations and marketing professionals for the centre and planning the grand opening, which is coming up in October of next year," Fenwick told the Optimist in an interview. "Also, building partnerships, connections, tendering contracts, that will all be part of running the shopping centre."
Featuring 200 stores, including 16 anchors, and a 1,100-seat food court, Tsawwassen Mills is under construction at Highway 17 and 52nd Street on Tsawwassen First Nation lands.
Meanwhile, Property Development Group is developing a separate outdoor mall next door comprising 550,000 square feet called Tsawwassen Commons. Its 100 stores will include Walmart and Canadian Tire.
At 1.2 million square feet, Tsawwassen Mills will have a mix of premium fashion brands, factory outlets, restaurants and first to market retailers. It will follow the model of the huge CrossIron Mills mall north of Calgary, which is already undergoing an expansion, and Vaughan Mills north of Toronto.
The other malls have such retailers as American Eagle Outfitters, COACH Factory, Gap Factory store, Glamour Secrets Beauty Superstore and Salon, HomeSense, Hugo Boss Factory Store, DSW Designer Shoe Warehouse and Pro Hockey Life, to name just a few.
Tsawwassen Mills only has one confirmed tenant in Bass Pro Shops, which is located at the other malls as well and will be making its first appearance in this province. More tenant news is expected in the next few weeks.
The 145,000-square-foot Bass Pro Shops will open next May, while the rest of the mall will celebrate its grand opening in October of next year.
"We describe the Mills centre as a hybrid of the best attributes of the traditional shopping centre, an outlet centre and a power centre. To be clear, it's not a traditional shopping centre, it's a very unique project in terms of the variety of retailers that will be here and how it functions as a destination for people," Fenwick explained. "There's going to be a unique mix of stores and we feel it's a very unique project that's unlike anything currently offered in the Greater Vancouver area."
Noting one of the marketing coordinators will focus on digital marketing, Fenwick said a tourism manager will also be hired as part of the marketing team.
A shuttle service is planned to take shoppers from the B.C. Ferries terminal in Tsawwassen, but when asked if there will be other shuttle services, Fenwick said it's something that will be studied closely.
"I can tell you that for our CrossIron Mills project in Calgary, they've implemented a summer shuttle that goes between downtown Calgary and the mall with a return trip, and we might be implementing something like that in the first summer of operation here. It's something we have to study further and look at the cost benefits of it," he said.
It's anticipated approximately 3,000 full-time and part-time jobs will be created as a result of the new mall.
In a company press release, Fenwick said they're committed to the sustainable growth of the community of Delta and will be working to forge strong social and economic ties to make positive contributions.
