One mall publicly confirms Disney Store leaving, while landlord and Disney said to have privately confirmed Canada-wide closure: Winnipeg Free-Press

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On Monday, Retail-Insider broke the news that The Disney Store would be closing across Canada, and would be closing most stores in the United States. The news was met with general disbelief.

Along with two outlets (Winnipeg Free Press, CTV News Winnipeg) confirming that city’s closure, the newspaper was able to get senior Disney and Cadillac Fairview staff to confirm the national closure. As with Retail-Insider, both of the Free Press‘ sources spoke off the record.

Publicly, Disney has done nothing to debunk the story that all locations in Canada will close, nor the claim that most American stores will close.

Surrey Now-Leader contacted their local store Tuesday, publishing today. A staff member, who asked to remain anonymous, said that they haven’t heard anything beyond online reports. “Hopefully we don’t close because that would be really sad.” Disney did not reply to that newspaper. Another outlet, Daily Hive, received Disney’s blanket statement about e-commerce.

DisKingdom.com has reached out to Disney’s media department multiple times, to seek clarity on the situation. Typically willing to reply to this website, they have refused to comment further. Our latest request to Disney was to seek clarity on whether it would open a fulfillment centre in Canada, to serve local customers of ShopDisney.com. Many online have noted that their orders double in price, once shipping and border tariffs are added in.

We’ve also reached out to the malls. While leases largely muzzle what they can say — the reason all the sources are unnamed in Retail-Insider’s coverage — some did reply.

Vaughan Mills owner Ivanhoe Cambridge replied that they don’t comment on tenant business. Metropolis at Metrotown offered that the “do not have any updates on the Disney Store at our shopping centre at this time,” and encouraged us to reach out to the realtor. Guildford Town Centre, also Ivanhoe, did not reply.

Kingsway Mall stated that they were “unable to confirm plans to close” the central Edmonton location.

Oxford Properties-owned Southcentre Mall and Upper Canada Mall individually replied that “at this time, we are unable to confirm plans to close the Disney Store” at their shopping centres. As of press time, DisKingdom has yet to receive a response from Yorkdale and Scarborough Town Centre, also Oxford shopping centres.

As Retail-Insider notes, Yorkdale had previously filed a building application with the City of Toronto, to demolish the area of the mall where Disney Store is currently located. It would replace that area with a new luxury brand wing.

Here’s what we know

Let’s recap what we know:

  • Multiple retail industry sources have confirmed the closure nationwide. This is according to Retail-Insider.com, on Monday, an industry publication that has no reason to lie, as DisKingdom has previously explained. Unfortunately, they weren’t able to go on the record, because of agreements that malls have with tenants.
  • The source of the news is unlikely to lie: Retail-Insider is an industry publication, and not vulnerable to creating clickbait content. They have a very specific, limited audience — the Canadian retail industry — and wouldn’t run a story without extensive confirmation behind the scenes, at risk of loosing their core audience.
  • Polo Park mall in Winnipeg is definitely loosing their store. Both CTV News Winnipeg and Winnipeg Free-Press have confirmed the closure.

In a statement provided to CTV News Winnipeg, the mall said:

We were disappointed to learn that Disney will be leaving the centre, as they have been a valued partner… As you know, our retail mix is in constant motion. We are working on other exciting opportunities that we look forward to announcing once details are confirmed.

  • Officially, Disney has refused to admit anything about their other locations. DisKingdom has asked the company for comment about the latest American closures (April 25), the Canadian closures (April 26, April 28), and not received reply. The company typically replies in a timely fashion. When Disney replied to Winnipeg Free-Press, they sent the same text as provided in the March 2021 press release, and refused to reply about how many jobs were affected, which stores would close, or when the stores would close. (All of Retail-Insider’s sources state that it would be during the summer, likely later in the year.)
  • Off the record, they’re more open. According to the Winnipeg Free-Press article, a “senior source at Disney” was willing to confirm the national closure “by the end of August.” This was also confirmed by a senior source at Cadillac Fairview. Cadillac Fairview also owns London’s CF Masonville Place, Hamilton’s CF Lime Ridge, CF Pacific Centre, Ottawa’s CF Rideau Centre, and CF Market Mall.

Importance of original reporting

It’s important to remember, only Retail-Insider, DisKingdom, the two Winnipeg articles, the Burnaby article, and Daily Hive have actually “done their homework.”

Other outlets covering the topic, so far, are all merely copying the original breaking story, from Retail-Insider.

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