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Only six months into a renewed lease, the manager of a Saskatoon business selling local products says the store is being kicked out of Midtown mall without an explanation.
Raylene Doerksen is the store manager for Handmade Saskatchewan’s two Saskatoon locations, in the Lawson Heights Mall and Midtown. In just a few weeks, she said that number will be halved.
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Doerksen said she got a call from the shop’s owner, Janelle Anderson, on March 30, saying she’d been handed a 30-day notice to vacate the premises in Midtown, where the store has been operating since 2021.
“We had no idea why. We were pretty blindsided by it, because we’ve always had a really good working relationship with them,” Doerksen said.
The store’s lease wasn’t supposed to be up until October and, according to Doerksen, discussions about a lease renewal typically happen a few months in advance, not in March.
She said it wasn’t a case of payment deadlines being missed, as payments were always made on time.
“We were kind of just perplexed as to why this was happening, with absolutely no indication as to why they were even considering having us leave the mall,” Doerksen said.
Handmade Saskatchewan has four locations in Saskatoon, Regina, and Regina Beach. The store is branded as a locally-owned gift shop, with every product made by people in the province. Doerksen said the Midtown store was the “main source of income” for many of the artisans.
“It helps pay their mortgages, their bills, their groceries, their gas for their vehicle,” she said.
But, Doerksen added, the impact doesn’t stop there. She said many of the staff members for the Midtown mall location may lose their jobs because the business is being forced to downsize.
“It’s pretty disheartening,” she said.
The products offered for sale at Handmade Saskatchewan are all made by people in the province. (Tapainga Walker/submitted)
A representative for the mall said it couldn’t comment on the situation.
“Midtown is unable to comment on the situation as we are not authorized to comment on behalf of our tenants or on the terms of our contracts,” read an emailed response from the mall.
That also includes not addressing the rumours around why Handmade Saskatchewan’s lease was terminated so abruptly.
But while mall won’t provide an answer, Doerksen said she has suspicions about why the decision was made.
New store coming into Midtown this summer
Doerksen said she’s aware of another artisan store called Shop Makers coming into Midtown soon, essentially replacing Handmade Saskatchewan.
“They are like a bigger, similar store to us, but they have a much, much bigger presence,” she said.
Shop Makers, which operates 24 retail stores across five provinces, is set to open in Midtown Mall sometime between mid-June and early July.
According to founder and CEO Adam Saranewych, each Shop Makers store features between 80 and 100 local artisans who pay a monthly fee to get their products on the shelves and keep 100 per cent of the money raised through sales.
Though it may be a larger company, he said the brand’s priority is showcasing local talent.
“Typically, about 80 per cent of all of our artisans are within a two-hour drive of the store,” Saranewych said, adding that some store space is also allocated to out-of-province products in order to fill certain niches.
According to Shop Makers CEO and founder Adam Sharanewych, the backlash to the incoming Saskatoon location has been “a little bit unusual.” While there have been concerns about Shop Makers being a “big corporation,” Sharanewych said it is “still a small, family-run business.” (Tapainga Walker/Submitted)
Saranewych said Shop Makers has signed a long-term lease with the mall which he noted is something the business prioritizes in an effort to ensure stability.
Handmade Saskatchewan, on the other hand, was not a permanent tenant at Midtown Mall. But, according to a March 31 Facebook post by the business, that was a choice made by Midtown.
“They state they are making way for permanent tenants. I have asked to be a permanent tenant and they will not entertain it,” the post read.
Saranewych said he doesn’t yet know where Shop Maker’s location in the mall will be, or if it’s taking over Handmade Saskatchewan’s spot.
“It’s really up to the mall, at the end of the day, to decide what sort of mix they’re looking for in terms of tenancy,” Saranewych said.
According to Saranewych, Shop Makers doesn’t enforce or request non-compete clauses and is “happy to coexist with other similar concept stores.”
For instance , Bower Place, a shopping centre in Red Deer, has both a Shop Makers location and a different handmade store on opposite ends of the mall.
Co-existing at a mall in Regina
As of last week, Shop Makers began co-existing with another artisan shop in Regina’s Cornwall Centre.
Rogue Artisan Boutique has been in the Regina mall for four years, selling jewellery and gifts.
“Not only handmade, not only Canadian-made, but we do carry a lot of Canadian-made and locally made products as well,” owner Bailey Kasko said.
The store operates on a temporary year-by-year lease, which is set to come up at the end of April or May, according to Kasko.
Shop Makers opened up its location in the Cornwall Centre on Friday after signing on to a five-year lease.
Kasko said she sees the two stores as, “offering a different experience,” adding that she hopes the new store will bring more people to the downtown shopping centre.
As for Handmade Saskatchewan’s Midtown location, Doerksen said all of its contents are being moved over to the Lawson Heights Mall location.
To help with that, the downtown store is now selling mugs with slogans like “Too Local to Handle,” “You can’t franchise heart,” and “Craft over Corporate,” with 100 per cent of the money raised by sales going towards its move-out bills.
She said the business still wants to have two locations in Saskatoon, and wants to keep doing business with all the artisans who were selling goods at the store in Midtown, but a new, permanent location still needs to be found.
