Rooms+Spaces forced to close at Kelowna's Orchard Plaza

The Rooms+Spaces store at Orchard Plaza in Kelowna lasted all of six months.

After opening to much fanfare in August to fill the gap created by the closure of Bed Bath & Beyond earlier in the year, Rooms+Spaces was evicted from Orchard Plaza recently for "defaulting on its obligations of the lease of this premises."

That's also known as not paying your rent and being tossed out.

The store is locked and emptied of all merchandise and two notices have been posted on the front doors by Orchard Plaza owner and operator McIntosh Properties.

The notice identifies the tenant as DBK Capital, the company of Doug Putman, the man who has been hailed as a retail magnate who is reinvigorating Canadian retail.

A profile of Putman on the www.roomsandspaces.ca website outlines how he stepped in to take over former Bed Bath & Beyond and buybuyBABY locations to open 24 Rooms+Spaces stores selling home, bed, bath and kitchen wares and decor.

It was touted as a confident move to lease a total of 800,000 square feet of retail space, hire 500 workers and forge the way for a brand new Canadian home and decor chain of stores.

Putman also bought ailing Toys'R'Us Canada and Babies'R'Us Canada and HMV Records to keep them going.

Putman also owns the Sunrise Records, Alex Toys and T. Kettle retail brands.

Rooms+Spaces is obviously in financial trouble.

Two stores in Vancouver and one in Victoria have also closed.

Others across the country have also closed on the way to all 24 stores being shuttered.

The online store at www.roomsandspaces.ca is still open.

The notice that Orchard Plaza pasted on the doors of the former Rooms+Spaces also explains that the tenant was first served with a 'notice of default' on Nov. 10, 2023.

Rooms+Spaces didn't pay up, so Orchard Plaza ended the store's lease with a 'notice of termination' on Jan. 4 with a 'demand to quit' dated Jan. 15.

Bed Bath & Beyond was in Orchard Plaza until the company closed all its Canadian stores in 2023 and then Rooms+Spaces moved in.

Orchard Plaza is located in the high-visibility location on Cooper Road between Highway 97 and Springfield Road and is home to 75 stores and services, including Save-On Foods, Source for Sports, Winners, Lee Valley Tools and MEC (Mountain Equipment Coop).

With the pandemic, the surge of online shopping and changing consumer habits, the Canadian retail landscape is in flux.

Stores such as Zellers, Target, Nordstrom, Sears, David's Tea, Future Shop, Lowes, Bed Bath & Beyond and Pier 1 have disappeared and others have reduced locations in an effort to 'rightsize,' such as The Gap, Banana Republic, Victoria's Secret and even Walmart.