Although the Hudson’s Bay store is now long gone from what was their flagship store at Yonge and Queen, the Christmas windows have been resuscitated. Yes! “The Bay Christmas windows” are back for 2025, courtesy of Cadillac Fairview, and I (along with many, many others) am very happy about this!
Background
On a frigid Sunday evening, December 14, crowds gathered along Yonge Street as Cadillac Fairview officially unveiled the return of Toronto’s iconic holiday windows at the former Hudson’s Bay flagship at Queen and Yonge. For the first time since Hudson’s Bay shuttered its Canadian department stores earlier this year, the illuminated display bays once again glowed with festive scenes, drawing families, tourists, and longtime downtown residents back to a ritual that has defined Toronto’s holiday streetscape for more than a century.
This year’s windows mark both a revival and a reinvention. With the department store behind the glass now closed, Cadillac Fairview has repositioned the historic facade as a leased experiential platform, beginning with a holiday activation by Mars Wrigley Canada. The confectionery giant has taken over seven prominent windows along the Yonge Street side of the building between Queen and Richmond, transforming them into animated tableaux designed to restore a sense of wonder to the corner while signalling a new future for one of the city’s most storied retail landmarks.
Cadillac Fairview, which owns the former Hudson’s Bay and Saks Fifth Avenue complex connected to CF Toronto Eaton Centre, has made clear that the holiday windows are no longer tied to a single department store tenant. Instead, the landlord is treating the building’s extensive street-facing windows along Yonge, Bay, and Richmond streets as a stand-alone experiential and media asset.
Publicly, Cadillac Fairview has framed the initiative as an effort to honour and preserve a cherished Toronto tradition, even as it explores new commercial and cultural uses for the space. Internally, the move also reflects a pragmatic response to the closure of Hudson’s Bay, which left a massive downtown anchor vacant after the retailer filed for creditor protection with more than a billion dollars in debt and failed to secure a buyer.
By reviving the windows, Cadillac Fairview is extracting value from the building’s most visible asset while longer-term redevelopment and re-tenanting plans are evaluated. The Queen Street frontage remains partially blocked due to Ontario Line construction at the intersection, but the Yonge Street run is fully active for the holidays, with additional bays on Bay and Richmond streets being marketed to future partners.
Although the windows are not as elaborate or intriguing as those in past years, it is wonderful to see that an effort has been made to revive a Christmas tradition at Yonge and Queen Street.
Text courtesy of Retail Insider
Yes it’s the little things like this that make Toronto a decent place to live.