It's time for Midtown Plaza's back half to become front and centre.

That's the major takeaway from the updated $80-million renovation plans shared by Saskatoon's largest mall on Wednesday.

Not only will the rear of the downtown mall be home to the city's first Mountain Equipment Co-op, as announced Tuesday.

But newly revealed plans for the larger mall renovation show a vastly transformed back half of the shopping centre facing busy Idylwyld Drive.

The forbidding Sears building at Midtown Plaza, as it looks today. (CBC)

The former Sears building — currently a brutalist concrete slab lined with blocky outcroppings — will become a sleeker, window-strewn complex.

The mall will get a reworked back entrance, flanked on one side by the renovated Sears building and on the other by a coffee shop. To the left of the coffee shop will stand the new Mountain Equipment Co-op store. (Cushman and Wakefield)

The second floor will be home to a new food court with room for 16 tenants.

The mall's food court will be moved to the second floor of the Sears building and feature space for 16 tenants. (Cushman and Wakefield)

The main floor will be subdivided into at least a dozen spaces.

No retailers have signed leases for first-floor space yet, said Terry Napper, the Calgary-based manager of the Midtown Plaza.

But Napper said MEC's announcement that it will open a store in late May 2020, in the space currently taken up by the mall's existing food court, is "quite a statement."

Saskatoon Mayor Charlie Clark agreed that MEC's arrival bodes well for the mall, especially given the departure of its anchor tenant, Sears, earlier this year.

Saskatoon Mayor Charlie Clark reminisced about his first purchase at a MEC store in 1993: a backpack he says served him well during a six month-long trip. (CBC)

"When Sears went down, there [was] a question mark: 'OK, what's the future of Midtown going to look like?'" said Clark.

"[We want] to make sure that the engine and heartbeat that Midtown has represented is able to help with the redefinition and rejuvenation of our downtown."

Clark, who grew up in B.C. where MEC is based, reminisced about his first purchase from the store in 1993: a backpack he said served him well during a six-month backpacking trip.

"I should have brought it with me," he said.

George Bevan, MEC's director of store development, said the co-op has 60,000 members in Saskatchewan, including 25,000 members in Saskatoon, despite not having a brick-and-mortar location in the province.

"It's a really good base to build off of," said Bevan.

Saskatoon's MEC store is scheduled to open in late May 2020. (Submitted by MEC)

The Saskatoon MEC store, measuring 20,000 square feet, will cost between $2 million and $3 million, Bevan said.

MEC won't benefit from $2.8M tax break

This past summer, city councillors approved a five-year, $2.8-million tax abatement for the Midtown Plaza renovations.

Napper said Wednesday that none of the savings from that abatement will be used to cover costs related to MEC's move into the current food-court space or any renovations (such as the months-long overhaul of the main mall concourse) that predated the June announcement about the $80-million overhaul.

The new MEC store will include a bike shop and reside in a mall that's already home to a Sport Chek.

George Bevan of MEC said the company currently counts 60,000 members in Saskatchewan, including 25,000 in Saskatoon, despite the absence of any brick-and-mortar store in the province. (CBC)

"Sport Chek is probably happy that Mountain Equipment is coming to Midtown," said Napper. "Better off to have them adjacent to the Sport Chek store because, to be honest with you, it will compliment their sales as well."

Napper added that negotiations to bring MEC to the mall did not require a non-compete clause.

Sport Chek itself declined to comment.

'Easy access' from street is key: MEC

Plans for the rear half of the mall also include new landscaping along Idylwyld Drive, plus a new back entrance flanked by a new coffee shop (which one is still to be determined).

The plans come as the city hopes to make Idylwyld Drive more pedestrian-friendly by adding multi-use pathways along the busy corridor, which may include separated lanes for cyclists.

"Our priorities are to do with easy access," said MEC's Bevan, adding that cyclists are a key part of the company's demographic.

Landscaping along Idylwyld Drive is another part of the Midtown Plaza renovation plan. (Cushman and Wakefield)

The city's Imagine Idylwyld plan also contemplates reducing the pedestrian crossing time at the intersection of Idylwyld and 20th Street — the gateway between the downtown core and the adjacent Riversdale area — to one minute from two minutes.

Randy Pshebylo, the executive director of the Riversdale Business Improvement District, said he supports that reduced crossing time.