Penticton’s iconic Cherry Lane Mall has been sold

Five months after it was put up for sale, Penticton’s iconic Cherry Lane Shopping Centre has been sold.

It has been confirmed the Jim Pattison Group has purchased the mall for an undisclosed price believed to be in the tens of millions of dollars from Manulife, the Canadian-based investment management company.

The sale comes after the anchor retailer, The Bay, closed operations in June after decades of success.

The Hudson’s Bay Company announced earlier this year that it was closing the vast majority of its dozens of retails outlets across Canada.

Highly visible from Penticton’s Main Street and with easy access to nearby Highway 97, Cherry Lane officially opened for business 50 years ago in 1975.

Cherry Lane is the only enclosed shopping centre in the South Okanagan and Similkameen.

It was put up for sale in late July of this year.

Media reports had the asking price between $68 and $69 million.

The mall is home to roughly 50 stores and just under 280,000 square feet of retail space.

The property includes more than 1,100 parking spaces on site and another 1.5-acre parking lot on the other side of Warren Avenue West, which is part of the same legal parcel.

Other tenants include Royal LePage, The Shoe Company, Booster Juice, a couple jewelry stores, Best Buy Express, Coles Bookstore, London Drugs, Save-On Foods and several clothing retailers.

The mall has operated under the management of commercial real estate firm JLL Capital Services for the past several years.

JLL’s online webpage says Cherry Lane Shopping Centre sees more than 2.5 million shoppers annually.

According to BC Assessment’s last assessment of the property, it was valued at $68.7 million.  Multiple residential buildings are located behind the mall, including the 11-storey Cherry Lane Towers and Athens Creek Towers.

In August of 2024, Penticton council approved a zoning amendment that would allow for the future construction of an apartment building at 2210 Main St., across from Cherry Lane Shopping Centre in the parking lot that houses the Real Canadian Superstore.

“The recent departure of Hudson’s Bay presents an exceptional opportunity at Cherry Lane that combines a stable and growing existing income base with the potential repositioning or redevelopment of the newly vacant 94,643 square foot space,” states a social media post from Kevin Douglas, an executive vice president at JLL Capital Markets, which handled the sale.

“Excluding the former Hudson’s Bay space, Cherry Lane maintains very strong occupancy of 90.7 per cent, with 62.5 per cent of base rental income generated by credit-worthy anchor tenants.

— This story was originally published by the Penticton Herald