Why Empire thinks it will thrive in a struggling downtown core

In the final days before Empire's downtown opening in late October, Phil Grisé takes the call from the construction site. In the background: power tools, counters being installed, his team merchandising three floors of retail space. The highly anticipated in-house café project with Laurent Dagenais, Maison BaultBerri, is running a bit behind—wood milling complications, the usual delays—but Phil's calm about it. He's been planning this for a year and a half.

What Grisé is pulling off is either brilliant or reckless, depending on who you ask: opening what's likely the biggest skate and snowboard shop in the world in a building where Archambault, a 127-year-old Quebec cultural institution, cited "evolution of consumer habits" and a deteriorating neighbourhood as reasons they had to leave.