How Saskatoon's Midtown hopes to turn vacancy into opportunity

Midtown, Saskatoon’s flagship shopping centre, has unveiled a new event space called The Studio, billed as a community-focused hub for connecting and creating.

“The Studio is a multi-venue type of space that can be used by community groups or business groups for a variety of different events,” said Midtown Plaza general manager Tara Faris.

“It could be a business meeting, it could be trading sessions, it could be a craft market or a pop-up market, paint night, what have you. It's just a very versatile space that has lots of different functional layouts.”

Local business Saskamper sells Saskatchewan themed clothing and has a store at the old farmer’s market building.

They’ll be taking part in the pop-up market this weekend and are looking forward to the exposure and foot traffic the mall has to offer.

“We're in a pretty small space,” said store manager Christina Burke.

“We just want to get out there and talk to people and get our brand out there, so we're super excited for that.”

Saskamper store manager Christina Burke

Faris says Midtown is slowly returning to pre-pandemic levels of foot traffic, and The Studio could help increase it while utilizing space that has sat vacant.

“The whole philosophy behind the studio was to provide an opportunity to activate the space, so an event space where people can come and gather, and to fill a niche, a little bit, in terms of the types of offerings of space that we that we do have available,” she said.

“It'll be great for the Christmas season,” said Burke.

“So many people are looking for specifically Saskatchewan kinds of things, especially for Christmas. People are looking for gifts for their out of province family, they want something specifically Saskatchewan.”

Faris says a similar space opened in Regina’s Cornwall Centre in October 2021.

“Their calendar is very booked up and so they've had a great deal of success and we're looking forward to that same success here,” said Faris.

She says recent inflation hasn’t appeared to affect the spending habits of mall goers.

“It's always something that you watch for, there's always things that are happening in the market that that might be impacting traffic or consumers’ disposable income,” she said.

“There's lots of robust recovery in the market from a retail perspective, and I think we're optimistic it's going to be a very good Christmas.”

Faris says renting space at The Studio will be complimentary for the rest of 2022, and flexible rates put into place in 2023.