Saks Fifth Avenue plans bold expansion into Canada, US cities

Saks Fifth Avenue’s boldest moves over the next year will have nothing to do with its stylish clothes.

The upscale department store is embarking on a seven-store expansion plan that will take the brand into Canada for the first time while expanding its footprint in Miami, Houston and New York.

The move is bold because many large department stores, stung by a retrenchment in consumer spending, are closing locations.

“We are facing headwinds with the drop in international tourism and currency fluctuations, but when this time changes, we want to be in place,” Marc Metrick, president of the 38-store chain, told The Post on Tuesday.

Owned by Canadian-based Hudson’s Bay Company, which also owns Lord & Taylor, Saks is betting that the downshift in consumer spending is cyclical and not tectonic.

Saks had previously opened roughly one store a year — and had closed more than 25 stores since the recession — making the current expansion plan that much more uncharacteristic.

But it is part of HBC Chairman Richard Baker’s aggressive growth strategy, which included buying Germany’s largest department store chain Galeria Kaufhof last year.

The Saks’ aggressive roll-out, starting Thursday in Toronto, will continue next year, Metrick said, with two stores — one for just jewelry and the other for sportswear — in leafy Greenwich, Conn.

A men’s store in Brookfield Place, in downtown Manhattan, will also be added. A shoe store, to be called 10022-SHOE, is opening in the fall.

Amid the pullback by some department stores, Saks is hoping to leverage its brand — at first in Connecticut — to create single-focus concepts while also beefing up the overall shopping experience at its other stores.

“A generation ago, department stores represented 10 percent of the retail market and now they account for 1.9 percent,” said Craig Johnson, president of Customer Growth Partners.

The new stores and even its flagship Fifth Avenue store, which is undergoing a $250 million revamp, will have more amenities.

For example, the flagship is getting a version of a Paris-based eatery, L’Avenue, that will serve lunch and dinner (a first for Saks) as well as a bar in its shoe department and juice bar in its contemporary department and a full salon.