Did anyone visit the Toronto Premium Outlets yet? Was it worth going?

[roseofblack25]

"Originally Posted by HeatherWake
Never heard of this? Details please...."



Premium outlets opened up their first Canada location.

It is in Halton Hills. 401 / Trafalgar.

They are calling it the Toronto outlets when it is 2 regions away from TO

I know right...if you are going to call it Toronto Premium Outlets at least make sure people that live in Toronto can actually get there!!! No TTC routes run that far so the only option is to own a car and drive, rent a car and drive, or take the go train. I have heard the discounts suck so I most likely won't be venturing there. I was basically only interested in Coach, Michael Kors, and Cole Haan anyway.

[Ciel]

Agree with Roseofblack25's comment about lack of transit options... Halton Hills does not seem to have public transit that connects with Oakville Transit. Halton Hills only has an occasional small passenger bus for its local seniors...
Technically Halton is considered part of the Greater Hamilton and Toronto Area>anyone who lives in Burlington to Toronto probably gets that detail reflected in their driver's licensing fee at renewal.
Anyone also needing tall pants can head to Eddie Bauer and find out what is stocked! I called the store during its first week and learned the good news from a staffer!

The parking situation of opening weekend-the very same things (using greenspace for parking, police on hand to direct traffic) happened Civic holiday weekend in 1988 for Promenade Mall's big opening. Everyone came then everyone just walked the two levels before visiting the food court for meals.

Family member went to Premium Outlets in US last weekend and he was underwhelmed by merchandise and pricing. So am tempering my shopping expectations in light of that comment--though I will say I am keen to see what's at the Hudson's Bay Outlet store and if Restoration Hardware's Outlet carries any of the lovely beach towels shown on its retail store website.



[torontogal12]

Anyone been here recently? Want to check it out but don't want to spend the whole time parking or in line to pay

[Ciel]

Just this past week, Rita Zekas of the Toronto Star wrote about her experience at Toronto Premium Outlets. She too found the public commuting options to the centre a trial. And she has seen better prices and stores elsewhere.

http://www.thestar.com/life/fashion_...m_outlets.html

[GoJays]

Anyone been here recently? Want to check it out but don't want to spend the whole time parking or in line to pay

i went with the family recently, we went mid-week around dinnertime... loads of parking, no waiting in line to purchase because there were no people! the couple of stores that we did go into had no one else in them except us! the prices are not good and the stores don't interest me.. it's very nicely built and laid out but i doubt that i'll be going again for a long time... the security guard riding around on the segue seemed a bit excessive to me.... lol

[Ciel]

Segways are in use at TPO? I recall seeing one in use inside Pearson Airport in October 2012. Found it odd in the arrivals waiting area but there must have been a reason for Peel Police to have them.

[keljai]

i find that the mall was really over-rated. wasn't worth the drive all the way up unless you had something specific in mind or had a coupon for a specific product that only they had to offer. I would prefer vaughn over them

[Ciel]

Vaughan Mills at least runs a free shuttle from downtown Toronto to the mall during May-October.

Just took at look at Toronto Premium Outlets. King Tours (under By Bus heading on link below)had started a paid shuttle service from downtown Toronto to TPO. Have to book online. $30 roundtrip.
http://www.torontopremiumoutlets.ca/...nto/directions
http://torontotours.ca/vip/

Pity Rita from the newspaper did not know of the option either!

[roseofblack25]

I haven't gone since it's technically not in Toronto and not accessible! I mean it is if I'm willing to pay $30 for the shuttle, or pay to take the Go train and whatever else to get there but to me it's not worth it. If a friend with a car is planning on going I would tag along to see what kind of deals they had, but I'm not going out of my way and paying money for transportation to get there. I wish they had of built it within Toronto so that people could access it with the TTC!

[Ciel]

I would have liked the outlets to have been within Oakville, either near the RioCan centre on BurlOak or near the RCSS on Dundas St near Trafalgar rd-@least there would have been transit options!
Paco Underhill was right on trend when he mentioned in a previous book that big box centres are locating far from transit but people still try to get there anyway. We'll see how winter tempers customers' shopping urges-I do believe there is much open area around the Outlet centre so it could get interesting.

[Ciel]

I and two family members ventured to TPO on Saturday morning. The road up to the mall has gravel shoulders! Farm country around the site-two nearby churches have cool architecture (Bethel United has a square turret/tower-on Trafalgar-and visible from the mall intersection (Trafalgar/Steeles) is a small brick church west of the intersection-very narrow side windows with neat arched tops. There's a cemetary on the other side of Steeles. Hwy 401 is visible from the south side parking lots. Summary statement about visit: one visit will last you a few months if you know where you have to shop. Tip-carpool with at least one person so when you have to stop to eat at the food court, there's one of you free to save seats.

Experience:
Pros-we started off with Hudson's Bay Outlet (it's 2/3 womenswear with a dash of menswear and a shoe/purse section) to check out coats. Mostly a mix of spring leftovers (there was a glorious orange Hilary Radley spring parka -microfiber-with flat shiny gold buttons (blingy) but it was a size 10 priced at $93.99 or was it $99, regular price was about $17- )and some winterweight car length coats or hip-length coats. Sizing favours the smaller numbers. We had a list of which shops had to be visited and stopped at a few others. If you are a smaller size and love Vero Moda (HBO), there are oodles of coral short pleated dresses for size 36 and lots of glazed skinny jeans in 27/32 sizes on the rack (behind the wall named Womens Sportswear). Saw one rack of The Room garb-gold check box jacket and skirt from Giambatta ---- was at the front of it. Most clothing racks had a card above explaining what discount (if any) applied to which colour sticker dot on the tags-very useful! Hue actually has casual clothing too-there was a rack of items.
-Some stores have floor tiles with some kind of rubber textured surface to prevent slips; Polo Ralph Lauren had dk red painted wood plank floor (good for absorbing sound).
-a couple of stores have no music playing-thank you!
-some clothing stores had better staffing ratios on floor than others. J. Crew was great and so was Eddie Bauer; have to say there's a really good salesperson working at Puma. Good luck finding help other than at cash at HBO, and Polo Ralph Lauren (it does have a Big and Tall mens' section) and Banana Republic. Adidas had its friends and family sale that weekend and its cash area was full of customers.
-saw three outdoor mobile cubes (NYC Jewellery, NYC Phones(?), and one more). No action happening but NYC Jewellery's lower tier has various sizes of white piggy banks with different designs on the sides-kind of a cute sight!
-tried a few parkas/bomber jackets at Columbia Sportwear and found out L size parka has perfect sleeve length but torso is too tight. XL sleeves are two inches too long but torso fits well. Saw a small size Mountain Hard bomber in two toned purple-only $249.99. Noticed a family member trying a bomber jacket-price tag was regular and about $179 (L size only). The other smaller sizes had green stickers saying $119.99. So check price tags!
-centre of the mall, outside food court, is a fixed mall map, so you can see how much farther you need to walk to the stores you desire.
-the arched roofs outside the stores would probably be nice for tempering the sun when strolling in the summer but they did channel the winds on Saturday so wind tunnel effect was noticed.
-food court>side wall of Guest Info just as you enter Food Court, look left at the brochure wall. Most things are for sites/accomodations but a couple of stores have cards stored there. One is for DKNY, save $25 when you spend $175. Eddie Bauer has a leaflet designed to attract new hires. Brooks Brothers had cards but I did not see if any offers were on the reverse sides.

Cons: sizes on sales racks tend to be small (HBO ran mostly 2-10; occasional 14 or XL seen); Eddie Bauer had three pairs of travel pants for about $34 but sizes were 6 or 10.
-the pants at Eddie Bauer in Long sizes have really long legs-probably about 35" however the twill pants were mid-rise (sniffle, not a style I can wear). I tried the regular size for curiousity's sake and the pant legs ended up at my ankle, so a tad short for me.
-the piped music on outdoor "streets" is the same noise (very 1984 because of the loud volume) you'll hear in the 6 options plus Gateway To GO food court. The outdoor furniture tended to be made of metal, so on a cold day they were not inviting to sit upon-there was an outside grated fireplace on the go though. Food court has the usual gray tables for four plus several round tables that allow 6-8 people to sit. Plain cream walls-no art suspended from ceiling to dampen the noise of hundreds. Only fabric seen was the TPO table covering on the west side table where Legion volunteers were selling poppies.
-Second Cup is not yet open
-the only restroom corridor doors from the "streets" with automatic doors are by the main entrance to the food court by Guest Information. All other restroom doors off the streets did not have visible door openers. Just a note-the washrooms from the food court are a bit of a walk and tended to have lineups in the ladies. You might prefer to use the ones farther away before heading into the food court.
-food court-you'll wait at least 10 minutes in line at Villa Medina to get to order your food. Then you have to play find enough seats for your group unless you smartlly travelled with at least one person who saved your seats while you ordered. It was very hard to find more than one seat at some tables so when a table opened up and I declined Villa Medina as my lunch choice, I took the table while the other two members waited to order. A 591ml bottle of Coke retails for $2.25 whether at food counter or a vending machine (located near washroom corridors). Umi Sushi had prepared cold dishes in the case or a selected hot menu. They offer bubble tea, hot bubble tea or slush drinks for $3.99, along with bottled drinks. I had the beef rollups (5 of them for $4.49 with rosette of wasabi and tiny pickled ginger rose in the box) and wakame salad ($2.99 with two cute carrot decorations on top of the salad) for lunch because the lineup was long and I was HUNGRY.
-The Gap does not have an intimates/sleepwear section. There were sections for women/youth/men and infants/toddlers. Most of the women's clothing seemed to be leftover from spring/summer. The silky long sleeve tops were polyester and prices were about $30. There were a few maxi print dresses for $20. Lots of shoppers/browsers and racks tended to be messy. Ditto Banana Republic-it was a zoo in the clearance section-look out for young kids running through the store after Mom/Dad. I did a two minute stop in BR then said we're leaving-too busy to really find something to try on.
-Restoration Hardware's furniture can be said to have some Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow vibe going on. Was super disappointed that the towel section was full of boring solids in dull yellow and many shades of greige/gray. No sighting of the summer printed beach towels on the main US website-boo, as I was hoping to get some on sale to cheer up the bathroom! Bad treat. Most of the furniture would be at home in lofts/warehouses/homes with super high ceilings-the scale is big. As in Pier 1 Imports, the centre of the store near cash had a couple of tables with smaller items for sale: huge pillar candles, and some travel items or small gift ideas.

Odd-noticed that help wanted signs in store windows had the same font/styles as other stores. Also, in several clothing stores, the same small rectangular cardholders were seen and cards with the same discount fonts on display (Polo Ralph Lauren/J Crew/Eddie Bauer). Does TPO have some kind of standardization clause for signs with the stores???
-Signature Perfumes had two counters, one along each long wall, with a staffer behind each counter. No customers in store. If an SCer visits the shop, tell us how the prices and brands are in there.

So what did I buy? A pair of socks on sale plus lunch--my curiousity was fulfilled. On the way home, we stopped at RCSS on Dundas St. in Oakville and did the no-tax grocery shopping!

I think I'll wait until January/February to return to TPO. Rita was right, don't expect to find major deals. Some stores do have lots to offer and size availability depends on stock on hand (tend to be smaller sizes). Wear comfy shoes as you'll be on your feet for what seems forever! We left after 2pm.

*Note-we drove around the mall when we were ready to leave just to get an idea how big the mall seems from the parking areas-it looks just like most suburban big box centres-inward looking. In C zone, we saw two coach buses parked in the transit area. So that is the most southeasterly part of the mall with an excellent view of Hwy 401 traffic zipping by.

[lilo0003]

Ciel: thanks so much for the details, I am only 10 minutes away and still have not made the trip and really don't see a need.

[Ciel]

Since it is early November, I'm glad that my trip happened this month and is over. There are still some stores that are not brands I follow but I remain hopeful to set foot in their stores next time that I visit.

For any Tim Horton's fans, there a regular-sized store about 1-2km south of the Trafalgar/Steeles intersection (west side) if you need your favourite drink/food before or after the outlet visit.

I was in Lime Ridge Mall and finally saw some Columbia winter coats stocked in Sears--the fit of one desired style was kind of tight in the elbows (fleece inner layer and lightweight graphic print fabric outer layer). Sort wish that I went on impulse and purchased that parka from TPO because it's what I want stylewise and Sears does not stock that style (the latter store has one longish zipper coat in purple or black, and about 3 bomber jacket styles and one ski-type jacket/parka in red graphic or the white version).