Athleisure, wellness and beauty dominated Toronto retail leases in 2025, as demand for space in the city remained strong and rents in high-traffic areas continued to rise, despite volatility at the start of 2025.
At the same time, value-based retailers like Winners found success absorbing demand from cost-conscious consumers, according to CBRE’s H2 2025 Retail Rent Survey, which examined retail trends and rents in 11 cities across the country.
Retailers like medispa locations, Pilates studios, and premium and discount gyms cropped up in Toronto last year, along with athleisure brands like Arc’teryx, Lululemon and Hoka.
“Pilates is really trending in the world of boutique fitness,” said Arlin Markowitz, CBRE Toronto executive vice-president. “Medispas and Botox is trending more than it used to … Beauty and wellness, every year, seems to be increasing its footprint overall, in terms of space leased and relevancy.”
Meanwhile, Yorkdale Shopping Centre and Bloor Street West welcomed “first-to-market entrants” — brands that hadn’t yet opened a store in Canada. For example, luxury Korean eyewear brand Gentle Monster opened in Yorkdale mall, and Italian menswear boutique Luca Faloni and upscale appliance brand SMEG opened on Bloor Street West, the survey noted.
“That’s a big feather in the cap of a landlord,” Markowitz said.
Additionally, Tiffany & Co.’s Canadian flagship is set to open at Bay and Bloor streets this Spring.
Across Toronto and Canada, value-based retailers like Winners, Dollarama, Bulk Barn and No Frills have also found success, Markowitz added.
“Loblaw has rolled out their urban-sized No Frills concept, which is doing really well, and they’ve signed many, many new leases in the past year,” Markowitz said. “They finally figured out how to create a 10,000-square-foot prototype for grocery,” something he said grocers have struggled to succeed with for years.
Commercial rents rose on Ossington Avenue, around Yonge-Eglinton, and on Yorkville Avenue, said Markowitz.
“Ossington has been a shining star of the urban leasing scene — tonnes of fashion brands, and restaurants, nightlife — and so traffic is rising there and so is demand,” Markowitz said, adding that the strip’s small size has likely contributed to its success.
In Midtown, rent hikes are a result of “so much new residential development and density and great access to transit,” he said.
Retailers in the financial core are also “back and buzzing” thanks to workers returning to their offices, and rents have risen there as a result, Markowitz added.
While many markets rebounded from the volatility of early 2025, not all retailers were resilient enough, the survey noted.
Canadian brands benefitted from the “Buy Canadian” movement, while U.S. retailers like Nordstrom, who “departed from the market,” likely lost some consumers as a result of the Canada-U. S. tensions, Markowitz said.
It’s also possible Nordstrom, like Target, didn’t “grasp the true differences between the Canadian and American consumer,” he said.
Luxury grocer Pusateri’s, which closed some locations, meanwhile likely couldn’t compete with value-offerings like No Frills, he said.
“Pusateri’s started opening in malls like Sherway Gardens and the Eaton Centre under the Hudson’s Bay, and I think we may have learned that grocery and malls don’t work together so perfectly,” he said.
