Craig Patterson
Craig Patterson covers how retail real estate decisions, store networks and brand strategies reshape the retail industry, with a focus on the intersection of landlords, retailers and changing consumer markets across Canada.
He is the founder and senior editorial leader of Retail Insider and oversees coverage while writing regularly, blending the roles of publisher, analyst and reporter in a single voice. His reporting draws on more than 25 years of studying the Canadian retail landscape as an analyst and consultant, alongside experience advising urban-focused academic centres, legal training and frequent public speaking.
Retail Real Estate and Changing Store Networks
His coverage of real estate is anchored in pieces such as his analysis of the First Capital sale that he frames as marking an end of an era in Canadian retail real estate. He uses events like the Warehouse One collapse to describe how shifts in tenant mix and retailer viability translate into structural change for landlords and shopping centres. Short news pieces on portfolio developments, such as Leyad expanding leadership as its retail holdings grow, track how ownership strategies affect individual sites and broader retail corridors.
Across these stories he moves quickly from deal terms and corporate moves to implications for vacancy, co-tenancy and the kinds of brands that can now find space or are being pushed out.
Store Openings, Closures and Flagship Strategy
Patterson regularly reports on individual store openings and closures, treating each as a window into brand strategy and competitive positioning. His coverage includes new entrants and first locations, such as MANMADE’s debut store at CF Carrefour Laval and Frette’s first Canadian boutique, where he details the choice of centre, the surrounding tenant mix and the brand’s ambitions in the market.
He gives similar attention to large-format and flagship expansions, from Apple’s massive store at CF Toronto Eaton Centre to MAC Cosmetics reaching its 100th Canadian location, often accompanied by photo-heavy tours that document design and merchandising. When brands exit, as in his reporting on H2O Plus closing Canadian stores and halting shipping, he frames the story around what the departure signals for category performance and the health of specific shopping environments.
Across these pieces he situates a single store decision within the broader network, explaining how luxury, specialty and mass brands are reshaping key corridors and centres rather than treating openings as isolated events.
Brand Expansion, Partnerships and Category Shifts
Patterson also follows how brands scale and reposition themselves, with frequent coverage of expansion plans and leadership changes.
In pieces on fashion label Joseph Ribkoff’s global growth under a new chief executive, he connects leadership moves to store footprints and wholesale strategies, tracing how Canadian-rooted brands pursue international reach. Coverage of loyalty tie-ups such as the Canadian Tire and WestJet partnership highlights how coalitions and points programs affect where and how consumers shop, linking financial incentives to traffic patterns in both physical and online retail.
His reporting on Warehouse One’s collapse as signaling a structural shift in Canadian apparel retail similarly focuses on category dynamics, explaining how mid-market chains are pressured by value players, off-price formats and direct-to-consumer brands. Taken together, these stories show an emphasis on the strategic layer of brand decisions - who is expanding, retrenching or collaborating - and what that means for landlords and competing retailers.
Retail Technology, Marketing and Industry Context
Beyond property and brand moves, Patterson covers retail technology and marketing tools that shape how retailers reach customers and use their physical assets. Articles on Apple Business launching Maps ads in Canada and on retail marketing automation for shopper promotions examine how new platforms and data-driven campaigns influence store discovery and in-store behaviour. He situates these developments within a broader view of urban change and consumer behaviour, consistent with his description of covering retail technology, urban dynamics and the business forces affecting the industry across Canada. As founder and publisher he also appears in interviews and videos about building the Retail Insider brand and evolving the publication to meet growing demand for industry news, underscoring his dual role as both observer and participant in the sector’s media infrastructure.
Patterson’s work ranges from quick daily news synopses to longer analytical features and photo essays, combining straight reporting on deals and openings with contextual explanation for readers tracking Canada’s retail and real estate sectors. He writes as an experienced researcher, retail analyst, consultant and public speaker, and frequently appears as a subject-matter expert in interviews and podcasts about the evolution of retail and retail media.
4 more real estate journalists.
Addie Morfoot
Addie Morfoot covers how real estate, culture and media meet, focusing on people, rules and the way homes shape a life. She reports for The New York Times on housing and lifestyle, from personal narratives about finding a home after loss to features on how short-term rental policy affects everyday owners and renters. She writes real estate stories that connect laws and regulations to the choices available to ordinary residents in specific towns and cities. She is a regular contributor to the Sunday Routine franchise, following actors, comedians and designers through a typical day and showing how settings like homes, studios and subway cars shape daily experience. She also has a long track record covering documentary film and the entertainment business, including legal questions around fair use, changing docu-series formats, festival premieres and financing. Her portfolio spans more than two decades of work for The New York Times, Variety, The Wall Street Journal and Crain’s New York Business.
Alcynna Lloyd
Alcynna Lloyd is a real estate reporter and economic journalist at Business Insider whose work is distinct for treating housing as a core economic system people must navigate. She covers how housing markets, costs, and mobility shape everyday life decisions, connecting data on rents, home prices, and city trends with stories of people managing debt, multigenerational living, and moves abroad. Her beat centers on housing costs, renters, and household strategies, following renters pushing back against landlords and tracking “desperate home sellers” using concessions in unaffordable markets. A second strand of her coverage focuses on relocation, remote work, and cheap cities as everyday economic strategies. She regularly uses rankings and lists, such as best and worst states to buy a home and Rising Stars of Real Estate, and reads city housing and migration shifts as signs of broader economic change.
Alec Lazenby
Alec Lazenby covers how provincial politics and government decisions shape housing, real estate and the wider social fabric. He reports for The Vancouver Sun from the provincial legislature. His work examines HousingHub, middle-income rentals, affordability, stalled projects, empty condos, developer layoffs, municipal housing targets and land use. He also covers health, addiction, safer supply, involuntary care, water rights, resource management, Indigenous rights and Crown land. Lazenby connects policy language to specific buildings, rents, projects, services and people. He explains financial, regulatory and market pressures, then follows how institutions, professionals, developers, municipalities and affected communities respond. His reporting tests government goals against practical outcomes and shows how policy reversals, construction costs, interest rates and political accountability shape housing and public life.
Amir Ali
Amir Ali links housing, disputes, and oddball neighbourhood stories in case-based, street-level reporting for Daily Hive. He holds a senior editorial and writing role, listed on the masthead as part of Vancouver leadership and described as a staff writer. His core beat is real estate, especially the rental market and housing affordability, tracking rent ranges, market shifts, and how pressures land on people trying to stay housed. He also covers crime, civil tribunals, and mental health, explaining decisions and conflicts in plain language that focuses on timelines, behaviour, and outcomes. Ali writes offbeat hyperlocal features, traffic and transport disruptions, business, food, and general local news, often turning infrastructure, small businesses, and civic systems into tangible stories. A former radio producer, he brings tight pacing and clear stakes to written pieces and maintains an active social media presence as a broadcaster and writer.