Woodgrove Centre, the largest shopping mall on Vancouver Island, has officially been listed for sale—just a week after its owner revealed plans to acquire Hudson’s Bay stores across Canada.
Located in Nanaimo’s north end, the 772,588-square-foot shopping centre sits on over 62 acres of prime real estate along Highway 19.
Originally built in 1981 and renovated several times over the decades, Woodgrove Centre is anchored by major retailers including Walmart, Hudson’s Bay, Save-On-Foods, Sport Chek, Toys R Us, Winners, Indigo, and Avalon Cinema.
The sale is being managed by Colliers, which describes the mall as a “regionally dominant, high-performing retail asset.”
It boasts a 99% occupancy rate with 133 tenants, bringing in nearly 6 million visitors annually and capturing more than two-thirds of retail foot traffic in Nanaimo as of January 2025.
What’s unclear is how this potential sale ties into owner Weihong Liu’s recent public interest in acquiring Hudson’s Bay Company.
The BC-based billionaire businesswoman serves as chair of Central Walk,which purchased Woodgrove in 2020 and also owns Mayfair Shopping Centre in Victoria and Tsawwassen Mills in the Lower Mainland.
She’s indicated she will hold a press conference on April 18th regarding her pursuit of HBC’s Canadian locations. Notably, Woodgrove Centre includes a two-storey Hudson’s Bay—one of the very properties Liu expressed interest in acquiring.
While the asking price for Woodgrove hasn’t been disclosed, BC Assessment pegs the combined value of the properties situatated between two main highways at roughly $230 million.
The mall is being marketed not just for its retail dominance, but also for its future potential. Designated as a Secondary Urban Centre, the site is seen as a key location for potential residential and mixed-use development, with over 10 million square feet of future growth possible.
Interested buyers will need to sign a confidentiality agreement before gaining access to offering documents through Colliers.
Whether this listing marks a pivot in Central Walk’s strategy—or part of a larger play to restructure assets ahead of a Hudson’s Bay bid—remains to be seen.
