For La Maison Simons, slow and steady wins the race. 
 

Canada’s oldest private family-owned retailer has opened just 19 stores in its 186-year history, but it has accomplished a feat few competitors can claim: surviving countless economic cycles and the more recent technological changes that have upended the traditional department store model.
 

Quebec-based Simons announced Tuesday it will open its 20th store in fall 2027, spanning approximately 92,000 square feet over three floors in the CF Pacific Centre in downtown Vancouver.
 

Simons is the second major Canadian retailer to develop part of the space formerly occupied by American chain Nordstrom Inc. Last year, Vancouver-based Aritzia Inc. announced it will build a 40,000-square-foot flagship in one of the subdivided units.
 

“Downtown Vancouver has been on our radar for some time,” Simons president and chief executive Bernard Leblanc said in an interview. “It’s just a matter of being patient to have the right location and the right conditions. To open at the heart of downtown, at the corner of Granville and West Georgia, is a perfect location for us.”
 

Leblanc said Simons is spending $55 million to renovate the space, with designs by McKinley Studios and architecture by LemayMichaud.

“Inspired by Vancouver’s architectural legacy, the concept references Brutalism and 1960s aesthetics,” according to a press release.
 

After opening its first store outside Quebec in 2012, Simons has expanded to major cities including Edmonton, West Vancouver, Ottawa, Calgary, Halifax and Toronto.
 

“Two-thirds of our sales come from our physical retail locations,” said Leblanc. “It’s still a very distinct part of how our service promise comes to life, how our authenticity comes to life and how that human connection with our staff members is created as well.”
 

Leblanc says the foundation of the retailer’s success is its “element of heritage,” as five generations of the Simons family ran the company before Leblanc took over as CEO in 2022.

He also pointed to its “unique” product assortment of 70 per cent in-house brands, and the fact that multiple generations can

shop for clothing, shoes, accessories

and home goods in one place.

The retailer’s push into new markets across the country also coincides with a swell of support for Canadian companies and brands.
 

“The fact that we’re Canadian certainly has played positively in the market dynamics today, where clients are loyal and looking to support Canadian brands,” said Leblanc. “I think that we’re really the Canadian heritage brand of choice today, and clients have been responding extremely positively to that offering.”
 

Simons hit $830 million in sales in 2025, a milestone that was helped by the opening of its first Toronto stores in the Yorkdale Shopping Centre and CF Toronto Eaton Centre last fall. Leblanc said sales subsequently went up across Canada.

“Something that we didn’t directly expect was that the openings in Toronto created a little bit of a halo effect around the brand and brought a lot of awareness across the country, just because a lot of people either travel or navigate to Toronto for different reasons,” he said.
 

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When asked about possible expansion into the United States, Leblanc said Simons has no current plans to go south and still sees “plenty of room” to grow and gain market share in Canada.
 

That said, there is “absolutely no rush” to expand, adds Leblanc. As the head of a family-owned private company, Leblanc says he has the “privilege” of working with shareholders that think in generations rather than quarters or years.
 

“We’re thinking about what the business can evolve (into) 50 years from now,” he said. “Our ambition has never been to be the biggest. What we really want to leave as a legacy is being the best in the eyes of our clients.”
 

• Email: jswitzer@postmedia.com