Kingsway Mall has a new owner.
Westcliff, a privately owned Montreal real estate firm, announced Monday morning that it has acquired the 880,049-square-foot shopping centre north of downtown Edmonton. The company called the deal its return to Western Canada.
The release didn't include a price. It didn't name the seller either.
Oxford's name is on everything at Kingsway except the announcement
Kingsway has been co-owned and managed by Oxford Properties, the real estate arm of the Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System. The last decade of the building is Oxford's work: Marshalls and HomeSense in 2017, exterior and common-area updates the same year, a 149,000-square-foot Walmart Supercentre in fall 2022, a rebuilt food court. Oxford still lists Kingsway in its retail leasing portfolio.
Neither company has said what changed hands or for how much. Westcliff's statement says it will work with the existing management and operations teams, and that continuity for tenants and shoppers is the goal.
The empty Bay is the biggest thing Westcliff just bought
Hudson's Bay closed at Kingsway on June 1, 2025, along with the Edmonton-area locations at West Edmonton Mall, Southgate, Londonderry and St. Albert Centre. The Kingsway store had been renovated as recently as 2017.
More than a year later, no replacement has been announced. Westcliff's release lists Walmart, HomeSense, Marshalls, Shoppers Drug Mart, Aritzia, Sephora, Lululemon and Browns Shoes. It doesn't mention the Bay space at all.
That's not unusual. A Canadian Press analysis in March found at least 73 of the former Hudson's Bay and Saks stores across the country were still sitting empty a year after the chain collapsed. In Edmonton, Londonderry got a Zellers reboot in part of its box. A JLL report in January forecast that 65 per cent of the 96 vacant department store spaces would be committed to new tenants within two years, with most landlords carving the boxes into smaller units rather than finding one replacement anchor.
Westcliff has already been living with this. Its Fairview Park mall in Kitchener lost its Bay on the same June 2025 date.
A very different sale than the one downtown
Three weeks ago an Alberta Court of King's Bench justice approved the sale of Edmonton City Centre to Edmonton developer Westrich Pacific, a year after that property went into receivership. Retail occupancy there sat just above 41 per cent, the price landed below the roughly $300 million paid in 2019, and secured lender Otéra Capital is taking a significant loss on nearly $140 million it was owed. The first phase of Westrich's plan puts about 1,500 homes on the former Hudson's Bay floor. Full breakdown of that deal here.
Kingsway is being sold as a property that works. Westcliff puts annual retail sales at $715 per square foot and foot traffic at close to seven million visits a year, across more than 160 stores.
Two Edmonton malls, three weeks apart, sold under opposite conditions. One went through a court. The other went out on a press release at 7 a.m.
So is Kingsway getting turned into condos too
Nothing announced, and nothing in the release points that way.
The two situations aren't comparable. City Centre was a distressed downtown property with more than half its retail sitting empty, sold under court supervision by a receiver. Kingsway has a Walmart, a full slate of national fashion tenants and seven million visits a year. Westcliff describes it as a dominant regional centre and frames the purchase around keeping it running.
Westcliff does develop residential and mixed-use property. It hasn't said anything about doing that here.
Westcliff has been buying this exact kind of mall
Westcliff was founded in 1972 and holds shopping centres, office, industrial, residential and hospitality property in Canada and the United States. In late 2024 it bought Fairview Park in Kitchener and Champlain Place in Moncton, both from Cadillac Fairview, as reported by Real Estate News Exchange.
Those two and Kingsway are the same asset: dominant enclosed regional malls in mid-size markets, bought from institutional owners. Not downtown flagships, and not the properties anybody is calling trophies.
"Our return to Western Canada reflects our confidence in the Edmonton market and in the enduring value of retail destinations that bring people together," Westcliff president Alan Marcovitz said in the release.
Vice-president Nicolas D'Aoust, who heads leasing, pointed at demographics. "Driven by a young and educated population, Edmonton's dynamism reinforces its appeal as a strategic market with promising long-term economic prospects," he said.
The 30,000 people supposed to move in across the street
Kingsway sits on 41.8 acres at 109 Street and Kingsway, directly across from Blatchford, the redevelopment of the old City Centre Airport lands. The City of Edmonton's plan for the site calls for roughly 30,000 residents at full build-out.
That build-out runs for decades and the current population is a fraction of the target. But it's the only place in central Edmonton where a mall's trade area is scheduled to grow by the size of a small city, and it's a two-minute walk from the front doors.
The mall also sits on the Metro Line at Kingsway/Royal Alexandra station, next to the Royal Alexandra Hospital and the Glenora and Westmount neighbourhoods.
What changes for shoppers
Nothing yet. No tenant changes, no renovation plans, no rebrand, no change to hours announced. Existing management and operations staff stay on through the transition.
Kingsway opened in 1976 and carried the name Kingsway Garden Mall until 2009.
What nobody has answered
The sale price
Who sold it, and whether Oxford exited fully or partially
When the deal closes
What happens to the former Hudson's Bay space
Whether current mall staff and management keep their jobs past the transition
Whether any capital spending or renovation is planned
We'll update this article as those details come out.
Sources
Westcliff Management Ltd., news release distributed by CNW Group, Aug. 24, 2026
Oxford Properties, Kingsway Mall leasing profile — https://publications.oxfordproperties.com/kingsway-mall/highlights
Kingsway Mall, About — https://kingswaymall.com/about/
Alberta Court of King's Bench, sale approval order, Aug. 7, 2026 (Edmonton City Centre)
City of Edmonton, Blatchford project page (pull the live URL and confirm the 30,000 figure against edmonton.ca before publishing — I did not verify it)
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