Woodward's

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Not to be confused with Woodward & Lothrop.
Woodward's Stores Ltd.
Company typeDepartment store chain
IndustryRetail
Founded1892
FounderCharles A. Woodward
Defunct1993
FateFiled for bankruptcy, stores sold to the Hudson's Bay Company
HeadquartersVancouver, British Columbia
Products(Full-line department stores & supermarkets) Clothing, grocery, pharmacy, footwear, bedding, hardware, furniture, appliances, electronics, music, cosmetics, jewellery, china, imported specialities, housewares, sporting goods, stationery, toys, home textiles, restaurants, garden centre, auto centres (at most locations); services at stores also included: travel agency, book stores, optical, hair salon, shoe repair.

Woodward's Stores Ltd. was a department store chain that operated in Alberta and British Columbia, Canada, for 101 years, before its sale to the Hudson's Bay Company.

History

Mayfair Shopping Centre in Victoria in 1974, Cherry Lane in Penticton in 1975, Sevenoaks Shopping Centre in Abbotsford in 1975, Lansdowne Park in Richmond in 1977, and Coquitlam Centre in 1979.[1][2]

Woodward's food floor at Northgate Centre, 1970

Woodward's was a central feature of the retail scene in southwestern British Columbia for much of the twentieth century. The chain was distinctive in that stores included a large

IGA supermarket, as Safeway showed no interest in that location. Many western Canadians fondly remember Woodward's famous "$1.49 Day" sales (said aloud as "dollar forty-nine day"), held on the first Tuesday of every month. These sales were advertised widely on radio and in newspapers, including a distinctive jingle used for years after it was introduced in April 1958,[4]
and offered everything from canvas-top running shoes to bath oil for the one price.

Woodward's filed for bankruptcy protection on December 11, 1992, after a decade of failing to keep up with the changing retail landscape.

Oakridge Centre and Chinook Centre.[6][7] The Woodward's locations that closed for good were at Southgate Centre, Mill Woods Town Centre, Northgate Centre and Coquitlam Centre.[8][9] Edmonton was by far the place the most impacted by the merger, with all but one of the Woodwards closures happening within its city limits.[10][7] In reality, a few of the locations that Hudson's Bay Company did acquired, such as in Park Royal, Bower Place and Sunridge Mall, were used to move existing The Bay or Zellers stores in the Woodward's spaces, resulting in layoffs in those places as well.[11][12] The Woodward's at West Edmonton Mall was initially among the stores that were to permanently close, but it was decided afterwards that it would reopen as The Bay.[13][14]

Woodward's also operated two standalone Furniture Fair stores in

Sunrise Records
) location, and additional retail space.

On December 8, 2009, the Woodward's Food Floor reopened for the first time since the chain's sale to Safeway. The new Woodward's Food Floor, which is located in Vancouver at the former Woodward's complex (along with a new location of London Drugs), is now a division of Nester's Market.[15]

See also

References

  1. ^ "Woodward's Stores Limited - City of Vancouver Archives". searcharchives.vancouver.ca. Retrieved 2020-09-29.
  2. ^ "Woodward's - The Department Store Museum". www.thedepartmentstoremuseum.org. Retrieved 2020-09-29.
  3. ^ "Woodward's Food Floors - Woodpens Club". www.woodpensclub.com. Retrieved 2020-09-29.
  4. ^ McManus, Theresa; Antonias, Tony (February 6, 2014). "The $1.49 Day Man (YouTube interview)". New Westminster Record. Archived from the original on 2021-12-13. Retrieved April 27, 2018. I was creative director at CKNW. The $1.49 Day for Woodward's, written the morning of February 17, 1958 ... hit the airwaves for the first time in April 1958, after Woodward's decided to use it. (Tony Antonias)
  5. Globe and Mail
    . Toronto. December 11, 1992. p. B1.
  6. ^ a b c "Bay day at what was Woodward's packs 'em in". Vancouver Sun. Vancouver. August 12, 1993. p. D1.
  7. ^
    Globe and Mail
    . Toronto. May 4, 1993. p. B1.
  8. ^ "Woodward's gone by August, all stores closed or converted:". Edmonton Journal. Edmonton. June 25, 1993. p. D1.
  9. ^ "Woodward's leaves black holes in Edmonton". Western Report. Edmonton. May 17, 1993. p. 16.
  10. ^ "City hardest hit by merger; Four of five Woodward's closures are in Edmonton malls". Edmonton Journal. Edmonton. April 24, 1993. p. F1.
  11. ^ "Park Royal store one of four in layoff focus". Vancouver Sun. Vancouver. April 15, 1993. p. C1.
  12. Calgary herald
    . Calgary. May 4, 1993. p. D1.
  13. ^ "Nearly 600 Woodward's jobs on line - analyst; Closure plan worries alderman". Edmonton Journal. Edmonton. April 19, 1993. p. A1.
  14. ^ "Loyal shoppers saddened by closing of Woodward's". Edmonton Journal. Edmonton. July 24, 1993. p. D1.
  15. ^ Woodward's comes back to life at the Vancouver Sun Archived December 8, 2009, at the Wayback Machine

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Woodward's.
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