New Long & McQuade Location in Halifax Will ‘Have Your Socks Knocked Off’
HALIFAX– Dartmouth Crossing will soon be home to one of the largest music store chains in Canada. Long & McQuade has just bought four acres of land at the retail hub. The storefront plus warehouse space will total 40,000 square feet.
“It’s going to be a really beautiful store,” stated Stephan Leenheer, the vice president of Long & McQuade. “You guys are going to have your socks knocked off when you see it.”
The Dartmouth Crossing location will be more than another Long & McQuade store. It will act as a hub and distribution centre for the region. The company has six Nova Scotia locations already, including in Dartmouth, downtown Halifax, and Bedford.
“One of the big things we want to do is make sure we have inventory close to all of our stores,” Leenheer explained. “Dartmouth Crossing was really an opportunity to improve the Dartmouth store and improve our regional hub. So that’s why it’s 40,000 square feet.”
Once the Dartmouth Crossing location opens, the Long & McQuade store on Main Street in Dartmouth will close. Leenheer says that property was never well suited for the company’s needs.
“We acquired that when we bought Music Stop, which was a long-standing East Coast company. The building doesn’t really suit our model. Rentals and some other things are tough to do out of that building. And so that’s why we’ve been looking for an alternative solution.”
But opening the new hub at Dartmouth Crossing isn’t the only investment Long & McQuade is making in the HRM. Their Bedford location is currently undergoing renovations. The Cunard Street, Halifax, shop will also be getting a major upgrade.
“It’s going to be a long process [on Cunard] because it’s an older building,” said Leenheer. “It’s kind of a complicated building but we want to make that a really good shopping experience for the customers on the peninsula as well. So we’re investing a lot of money and time into Halifax right now.”
One of the reasons Long & McQuade felt comfortable making such a huge investment at Dartmouth Crossing was because of the location. There will be so many other retailers surrounding the store that it will be part of a shopping destination.
“One fella said [on Facebook] ‘while my wife is at IKEA I now have something to do,’” noted Leenheer. “When somebody drops someone else off for music lessons, there’s so many other things you can do, like pop over to Canadian Tire.”
Long & McQuade, which started in Toronto in 1956, is proof that some retailers can still have success with brick-and-mortar stores. The company has about 100 locations across Canada. Leenheer says Long & McQuade succeeds because they have unique services other music stores don’t always offer.
If you don’t want to buy an instrument, you can rent it. They also have in-house financing for those who can’t afford to buy one in a lump-sum payment.
“It’s a very close relationship that we have with our customers,” said Leenheer. “And then our rental rates are really, really, low. And everything that we sell, we rent so it’s just a different model than most music stores that you walk into.”
On top of that, most of the stores also have centres where customers can take music lessons.
“Before the pandemic, we were, by far and away, the biggest music educator in Canada,” stated Leenheer. “We did roughly 33,000 lessons a week. We’re crawling back up to that number but the pandemic changed so many things.”
“Jack Long, who founded the company, felt it was important that we cultivated a place where we can teach you the instruments that you buy from us.”
The Long & McQuade vice president also believes the stores are still successful because of the unique relationship customers must have with their instruments. Most people don’t want to buy something so important without seeing and feeling it firsthand.
“A guitar is a very personal thing. A trumpet is a very personal thing. So, a lot of customers still want to touch and feel and fall in love with that instrument.”
Long & McQuade hope to have the Dartmouth Crossing location open by no later than 2025.
Derek Montague is a Huddle reporter in Halifax. Send him your feedback and story ideas: [email protected].