Champlain Place, N.B.'s largest mall, sold to Montreal-based property company

New Brunswick's largest mall, Champlain Place in Dieppe, has been sold but there will be very few obvious changes, said general manager Brian MacMullen. 

"At Champlain Place, it's going to be business as usual. There should be no noticeable change to our customers or retailers. It's really just a change of ownership and that's it."

Montreal-based Westcliff Group bought the 784,372-square-foot mall, saying it "perfectly aligns with Westcliff's strategy," according to the company's vice-president and head of leasing, Nicolas D'Aoust, in a statement on its website. 

MacMullin said the mall's current formula is working so there's no need to make any immediate changes — beyond the name, which will become Place Champlain Place to reflect the "bilingual nature of our customer base," said MacMullin. 

It's unclear whether the shopping mall  was even on the market before the sale. MacMullen referred the question to his new employer, Westcliff Group, which referred the question to the seller, Cadillac Fairview, but the company has not responded to a CBC request. 

Meanwhile, two Saint John malls that have been on the market for months have not sold. 

McAllister Place was listed for sale in June, while Brunswick Square has been on the market since early April. 

Natasha Cheng, with Primaris REIT, which owns McAllister Place, said there have been "a lot of inquiries and a few offers that we have considered, but nothing has materialized yet."

An official with Slate Asset Management, which owns Brunswick Square, said there was "nothing to share on this right now." 

Bill MacAvoy, managing director of Cushman & Wakefield Atlantic, the contracted leasing agent for Brunswick Square, said having three malls for sale in a small province like New Brunswick is more of a coincidence than a sign of trouble for malls in the future. In fact, he said, it's the opposite. 

"Malls absolutely have a future," said MacAvoy. 

The fact that buyers "are coming forward and stepping up and acquiring them, at numbers that the sellers are willing to dispose of them for, is really a good news story for the health and the future of retail."

MacAvoy said that in the sale of Champlain Place, along with three malls that have sold in the Halifax area in the last two years, "the offers that have been coming in have met, or in many cases exceeded, the vendor's expectations." 

Jim Cormier, the Atlantic region director of the Retail Council of Canada, doesn't expect many changes for the retailers of Champlain Place.