Garden City Shopping Centre; Winnipeg, Manitoba
I didn’t want Canada to feel left out, since they seem to actually have more malls than the United States (per capita anyway). Hey, it’s colder there. Anyway, Garden City Shopping Centre is an enclosed mall with 80 stores located on the northwest side of Winnipeg, Manitoba. It is approximately 30 years old, and anchored by major stores Sears, Canadian Tire, Winners, Petcetera, and Shoppers Drug Mart. It’s perfectly successful, and your average suburban mall in every way with one notable difference. It’s in Canada. Therefore, it’s automatically fascinating to a Yankee (like me) with an interest in chains, malls, and retail in general.
In order to begin comprehending how malls seem to work in Canada (and they do work differently), I’ll provide a very short primer here. While the enclosed mall is essentially the exact same thing that we have in the States (but with different stores, of course), Canadians seem to construct them more often. That is to say, their mall-per-capita ratio is higher than ours. What in the States would be a strip mall anchored by grocery, discount, or other, is often in Canada a fully enclosed mall. Sure, they have plenty of strip malls and even the latent big-box anchored behemoths (they often call them Power Centres), but they certainly have a lot of enclosed malls aimed at serving only a neighborhood contingent. Here in the States, most of our enclosed malls (with exceptions, of course) cater to at very least a regional, if not super-regional consumer base. In the States, it would be more odd to find an enclosed mall anchored by a grocery store or discount store and nothing else, whereas in Canada, it’s quite commonplace. That said, there seem to be a lot more enclosed malls in Canada per city or metro area because there actually are.
Winnipeg is no exception to this rule of thumb. There are no less than 10 enclosed malls of significant size within Winnipeg, which has a metro population of approximately 700,000. Compare that to similarly sized (or larger) metropolitan areas in the United States and you will mostly come up short. That’s just one of the reasons Canada is fascinating to me. I also enjoy it because it’s like an alternate reality or paradigm shift to the United States. Essentially things are done the same and the same types of things are available, with quirky differences to make it interesting. In retail this is exemplified in the fact that their chains are similar to ours, but not the same. They have chains of their own mall stores that are in every mall there, just like we do. But they’re different. It’s great.
I took these pictures in July 2001. If someone’s acutally reading this from Winnipeg, please comment away. I’ve never met any Canadians interested in malls and retailing in general, and it would be a great perspective from the other point of view.
JP
July 27th, 2006 at 2:58 pm
Here’s a Canadian that *is* interested in this stuff, though I’m from the wrong side of the country to give any sort of info on this particular mall.
I will, however, make a few notes about Canadian retailing and malls in general and a few things to note from these pics:
* There’s a reason we’ve got more enclosed malls. You know how cold it gets up here?
* The exterior Sears sign in picture 02, to my knowledge, is strictly a Canadian thing. The first Canadian Sears stores were a joint venture between Sears Roebuck and Simpson’s, an existing Canadian department store. They were actually known as “Simpsons-Sears” for a long time. When the Hudson’s Bay Company (owners of The Bay and Zellers) bought Simpson’s in 1978, that joint venture ended and the name changed to “Sears”. That was the font used for the Simpsons-Sears logo, and to this day you can see the labelscar where the “SIMPSONS-” was on some older stores. (To this day, Sears USA only owns about half of Sears Canada, though they are trying to buy out the remaining shares.)
* Canadian Tire and Winners aren’t as common in malls as other discounters like Zellers or Wal-Mart, but they’re still there in some places. It wouldn’t surprise me if CT and/or Winners were formerly a more standard department store like the now-defunct Eaton’s.
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Le Prof
July 28th, 2006 at 1:09 am
I’m also a Canadian interested in retailing, although I’m a newbie…
First, I’ll do a ratio for Quebec City where I live: 4 malls with more than
2 anchors, always Sears, The Bay and/or Zellers. Then 5-6 smaller malls with an anchor and /or “power centers” with outlets and a Wal-Mart nearby, which seems to be the new trend here.
That’s 10 malls for 600,000 people in the metro area. Of course there are smaller malls and strip malls, often anchored by a supermarket or a discount store and generally includes a bank and a drugstore. In the province of Quebec, the supermarket was often a Steinberg’s (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steinberg’s), easily recognizable now in some older malls by their “car service” facilities still in place.
Finally, I’ll add something to what JP said about Canadian Tire (which sells tires, but also car parts, sporting and camping goods, gardening products, paint and tools). I noticed that Canadian Tire closed several stores in “older” areas to move in larger locations closer to the new “power centers” and closer to the expanding suburbs. This has left some abandoned stores throughout Quebec City at least. I’m wondering if it’s happening somewhere else in Canada.
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Jeff L.
July 28th, 2006 at 2:36 am
I was just in this mall a month ago when I visited a friend in Winnipeg who lives nearby. It hasn’t changed much since those photos were taken…in fact the mall is looking a bit dated now, especially in the food court area.
I’ve heard that Calgary (where I live) is considered ‘under malled’ compared to other Canadian cities. We have 5 major malls and 4 or 5 smaller ones in a city of one million people. All of the malls seem to be thriving though, and most of them have been renovated extensively over the past few years. The main mall here, Chinook Centre, is one of the three top-performing malls in Canada now I believe.
Another difference I’ve noticed about Canada compared to the US is that downtown retail tends to be stronger here. Downtown Calgary has 3 department stores (Sears, The Bay and Holt Renfrew) connected by a series of malls that are always busy.
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jay
July 28th, 2006 at 4:10 am
yeah, canadian tire before big boxing had a lot of mall stores. i know in the montreal area there is a canadian tire in the “galerie des sources” mall still. cavendish mall lost its canadian tire recently. Of note in the montreal area at least if a mall had a steinbergs it more often than not was owned by ivanhoe or some other steinbergs owned real estate division. And often steinbergs was closely placed with a steinbergs owned miracle mart. Now for some mall perspective. lasalle quebec a city of about 70 000 at one time had 6 enclosed malls, 2 were anchored by steinberg stores (one had a zellers and the other a miracle mart as co anchors) another mall had a woolco and dominion later provigo and another a k mart (reno depot) and dominion, the other 2 malls were a super regional mall and a small food mall.
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RollingAcresDotOrg
July 29th, 2006 at 12:59 pm
In reference to the comments about the Sears logo, that’s just the older logo – it was Sears’ standard, what, 15-20 years ago?
As far as Candian Sears stores go, I think Canada is unique (in comparison to the US, at least) in that many Sears stores there are actually called Dealer Stores – basically, they’re franchised and independently owned. As far as I know, that’s very uncommon in the US.
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Bobby
August 15th, 2006 at 11:32 pm
there are a ton of Sears dealer stores in my area. They’re called Hometown Dealers if I’m not mistaken.
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Tyguy
August 21st, 2006 at 10:23 pm
I’m another Canadian who’s interested in this sort of thing. I too am from Calgary where we seem to be undermalled. I live in the south end of the city we have two huge power-centres down here with Canadian Tire, Zellers, Wal-Mart, Safeway, Calgary CO-OP (cooperative grocery store), and the Home Depot are the big stores. Most of this stuff has gone up in the last 5-10 years, especially in the area of Shawnessy, but there is also Westhills and now an area called Deerfoot Centre (I think) is just being finished up, they have a Real Canadian Superstore, Future Shop (which are the same company, right next door to each other), Costco, and a gigantic IKEA. I think there might also be a TJ Maxx over there but I’m not positive, I don’t know if they have locations in Canada or not.
One possibility that Calgary has fewer enclosed malls than other Canadian cities is that the climate here really is not too bad. We don’t get a whole lot of snow, theres usually no more than a foot of it on the ground in the winter, and it only get REALLY cold for maybe about 2 weeks in January. Each winter it seems to get warmer, thanks to the global warming.
The two prominent malls in the south end are Chinook Centre and Southcentre. Southcentre is anchored by The Bay, Sears (which used to be an Eaton’s), and junior anchors Sport Chek and Indigo Bookstore (like a Barnes & Noble). Chinook Centre (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinook_Centre) is anchored by The Bay, Sears, Old Navy, Zellers & 17 screen movie theatre with IMAX. It has be rumoured that Chinook Centre is going to be expanding again which might bring Sephora, Restoration Hardware and Crate & Barrel to the mall, this is because the mall has the highest sales per square foot of any mall in Canada.
Anyways, there is a small mall in my area called the Midnapore Mall that has been nearly abandoned. I will try to take some pictures this week with my cellphone and send them to you. One other note about Canadian Tire, the 3 in the southern part of Calgary have all recently been remodeled for their new concept store. I used to actually work at Canadian Tire and had heard about plans for the remodelling for about 2 years in the works.
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smack Reply:
November 13th, 2009 at 1:19 pm
@Tyguy,
I suggest you come to Edmonton.
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Tyguy
August 21st, 2006 at 10:26 pm
Also, besides Southcentre, Chinook and the downtown malls of TD Square and Eaton Centre (it still is called Eaton Centre even though Eatons is now defunct) downtown that Jeff had said. The other 4 malls in the Northern part of Calgary include Market Mall (just underwent major renovations, North Hill Mall, Sunridge Mall (recently renovated as well) and Marlborough Mall.
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RLClaude
August 31st, 2006 at 1:35 am
My late dad used to work for foodstores (mainly Steinbergs) in Montreal, so shopping centres and shopping malls always had an effect on me, as 40 years ago, a foodstore was one of the main anchors.
I have seen the evolution of outdoor malls which were build in the 50s (Steinberg owned at least one out of two shopping centers in Montreal, as the supermarket was the main anchor). If the first shopping center was the Norgate (which housed among others a Zellers and a Loblaws market), the first enclosed outdoor one was Rockland at Mount-Royal (was almost a deadmall before the refurbishing some 20 years ago…). However, at the time, many shopping centers were build around town. If the main supermarket was not Steinbergs, Dominion took the place. For department stores, you were looking for Morgans (now Hudsons Bay), Eatons (now Sears) or Simpsons for big stores, big marts like Towers (which Zellers bought later), Woolco (now Wal Mart), K Mart or Miracle Mart (which Steinbergs owned), a major hardware store like Pascals and the five and dimes like Woolworths, United, Greenberg, A.L.Green, Kresge and Rossy among others. Zellers was first a small department store before going into the big mart stores in mid-60s.
Then the enclosed malls came with mostly the Fairview Pointe-Claire being the first state-of-the-art mall (it had one floor at the time) with big anchors like Eatons, Simpsons, Woolworths, Pascals and Steinbergs. Then some of the outdoor malls underwent changes to become indoor malls due to our harsh winter climates. Up to 1985 (the last one being Carrefour Angrignon in Lasalle) , so many big malls were built around the suburbs of Montreal.
However, the concept of the Food Supermarket in the Mall that was absent from many american malls began to dissapear when Steinbergs closed down and was sold to Metro, Provigo Loblaws and IGA in 1992. Malls didnt care anymore if a food store was in. However, up to this day, just about 10 to 15 malls have a supermarket.
We have also demolished three malls (one in East Montreal, which was never occupied, and in Laval, where a big department store/supermarket complex once stood since 1974, in 1986, les Terrasses in Downtown Montreal to be replaced by Eaton Centre…). Also several malls were victims of fire: 1957 in East Montreal, 1969 in Dorval (a whole Morgans store was burned to the ground as the rest of the mall survived) and in the beginning of the 1980s in Longueuil (the two Steinbergs anchors and a cinema stood up, the rest burned to the ground…) and Place Alexis Nihon in 1987 (the office tower) and 2006 (a small fire in the Zellers store). There were minor fires at other malls but no major damages. And some are becoming more or less dead malls.
These days, powercenters and lifestyle shopping areas are taking over. Many malls are still surviving (mostly the ones owned by Cadillac Fairview and Ivanoe Cambridge among others…), but most of these must reinvent themselves to beat the big discount stores competition. And speaking about Canadian Tire, they were also considered a major anchor a while ago, but they deserted (well almost, there is still one in Place Alexis Nihon) to have independent structures. Same for Future Shop, and of course…Wal Mart !
Anyway, if we keep our malls, it is mostly because of our harsh winters, otherwise it would have become like the fate of many dead malls in America: abandonned then demolished.
Hope you come to Montreal some day and visit our malls.
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Caldor
August 31st, 2006 at 1:49 am
I would love to go to Montreal, and I hope to soon. Since I live in Boston, it’s only a quick 5 hour drive to get there and Montreal is already one of my favorite places to spend a long weekend.
I’ve been more wary of going to visit malls, however, because of the border-crossing issues and the fact that my French is pretty poor. While the latter hasn’t hurt me much downtown, it may in the suburban areas. And especially since I’d likely have to go alone, both of these issues are somewhat intimidating.
Interestingly, the closest malls to home that I haven’t visited yet are the ones in Sherbrooke.
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zayre88
September 5th, 2006 at 1:02 am
I’m also a Canadian interested in retailing and malls. The only thing is that i’m more interested in U.S. retail and malls… just visit my website(geocities.com/zayre88) and you’ll see! I live in a Canadian city of nearly 30,000 of population and Wal-Mart opened a store here in january 2006!! Being close to the U.S. border, i often travel to New England and this is where i saw that a city the size of mine had many more retail stores and restaurants per capita.
We have two enclosed mall but only one is thriving (Zellers/Sears/Staples). It’s very similar to the Garden City Sh.Centre: 80 stores, Sears, approximately 30 years old. Before it expanded, it looked like a shopping plaza with a supermarket, Greenberg and Zellers… not a mall. Now that the grocery store left, the mall lost it’s “plaza” feel but it now includes Staples wich tends to have locations in power centers…
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Ian G. Ilagan
June 1st, 2007 at 12:01 pm
Well, I’d like to talk to you about the close-to-dead mall Galeries St. Laurent in Montreal’s St. Laurent borough. Zellers pulled out of the mall in 1995 when it moved to Place Vertu after a 2-year overlap, replacing the old Pascal hardware location. Canadian Tire pulled out of Galeries St. Laurent in 2000, moving it to Place Vertu at the old Kmart. Place Vertu had 2 department stores — Zellers & Kmart. Kmart pulled out of Canada in 1998. Galeries St. Laurent began to experience its slow death, and south of the Jean Coutu has turned into a strip mall. Just recently, the Bay store at Place Vertu closed down, and Zellers will be occupying it soon.
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Tim Goffard
July 18th, 2007 at 1:26 pm
Funny- I just got back from Garden City. It is one of the least desirable malls in Winnipeg, but it services that area well. It is a place to get what you need, but that’s it. The theatre has two small screens, but the tickets are very cheap. It seems to mostly draw a more elderly crowd. It’s too bad you didn’t see a couple of the better malls.
It is kind of surprising the trend towards “big block” malls, or “super centers”, since statistics show a smaller profit per square foot than traditional mall stores. The super centers also tend to draw men more than women because you can dash in, grab what you need, and get out before your wife can find any shoes! In “Winter-peg” it is a treat to hang out in a large open space with heat! Our downtown is largely all connected by skywalks and heated parking. It’s funny how once you start earning your own money, you don’t hang out at the mall much, though. The prices tend to drive us out to Wal-Mart, which is a shame given a lot of their less-than-steller ethics.
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Prangeway
July 19th, 2007 at 12:38 pm
I actually visited all the malls in Winterpeg that weekend back in July 2001 and just chose this one at random; I just haven’t posted any of the other ones…yet. I’m wondering if any of them have closed since. When I visited they had just demolished one of them out past Polo Park on that huge strip by Portage and Perimeter Hwy. Many of them were the small, Canadian-style small enclosed center anchored by a discount department store and a grocery store, the kind we mostly lack here in the States. I would imagine the climate dictated this at first, yet in the northern third of the US it gets just about as cold as it does in the populated parts of Canada, so it seems to have become a Canadian regionality that these malls have kept on where the small malls in the States have disappeared en masse.
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Allan
July 26th, 2007 at 5:06 pm
I wouldn’t be surprised if in the decades from the 60s to the late 80s/early 90s, if some towns in far northern states of the USA(a la Montana, North Dakota, Minnesota, etc.) did used to have small malls, like what occurred in many small towns in Canada.
I remember when there was an entry on labelscar about that one mall that was built in Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin(funny I always forget its name!), that’s a perfect example of what I suspect many of these small-town Canadian malls were like.
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JP
July 27th, 2007 at 10:48 am
The mall you described was the Unicity Mall, whose anchors for a long time were (I think) K-Mart and Woolco. The mall was taken over by First Pro (now SmartCentres – http://www.smartcentres.com) in the late 90s, who owns many of the new Wal-Mart power centres across the country. They turned it into another one of those abominations.
I have relatives in Winnipeg who live near the Unicity site, and when I visited them in 2001 they railed about how they destroyed a perfectly good mall.
From what I’ve seen on this site and others, much of the upper midwest in the US is sprinkled with those small town malls. As someone from the east coast whose US retail experience is mostly shaped by what I’ve seen in New England (where only a handful of those malls exist), I found that to be somewhat surprising.
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kim
August 18th, 2007 at 8:39 pm
Hey JP,
I think Unicity had a Woolco and a Domion Store and the Bay (for sure I know that), I think Kmart was on Cavalier Drive. ?????
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sherisse
November 20th, 2007 at 4:44 pm
The old Unicity Mall – before it was turned into a box centre was anchored by The Bay at one end, Woolco at the other, and a Safeway grocery store in back. The KMart your thinking of was 3 or 4 blocks down Portage Avenue on the corner of Cavalier and Portage. It was at one end of a strip mall, that also had a Dominion grocery store in it. Across the street on the other side of Portage Avenue was another Safeway store with a strip mall and anchored at the other end by a Zellers store.
It was sad to see the old Unicity Mall torn down, but in all honesty there wasn’t anything in it to hang onto. Because of the rising rent costs half of the stores were empty. There was alot of wasted space.
To share in some of the wonderful memories from the Mall join me on facebook in the group I hung out at Unicity Mall when it was a Mall! See you there!
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Stefany S
February 15th, 2008 at 7:42 pm
I didn’t realize the States were so different.. in a way. I totally understand the charm metaphor. I mean.. I think we really only have one “out door mall” thats on Kenaston (where you have to walk from outlet to outlet out doors, correct?).
I actually found your blog because I was looking for information on Walmart, apparently the St. Vital mall (its in the south part of Winnipeg, probably the second bigger mall in terms of how many people go there) is one of the few malls in North America where Wal-Mart is actually connected to the mall, not a “store” in itself. I haven’t found information on it yet, but it seems interesting.
And I do have to say, yay for WInnipeg publicity! ^_^
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Matthew
March 19th, 2008 at 3:26 pm
The first comment speculating that the Canadian Tire location was a former Eaton’s was correct. It was one of the Eaton’s stores closed when they were making rounds of store closings and at the time it was converted into a Canadian Tire, it was the largest Canadian Tire in western Canada.
Having lived in Manitoba and now live in Michigan, I do notice the lack of indoor malls here per capita. In fact, the small- to mid-sized malls have been closing down with only the 100-plus store malls surviving. I think it has to do with the urban sprawl mindset in the US versus the urban planning mindset in Canada. I have noticed the shift toward big box stores in Canada, though. No new malls have been built in Winnipeg while older, smaller retail locations have been demolished with big box stores being shoehorned in in their place.
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JP
March 24th, 2008 at 6:56 pm
Stefany S:
Wal-Mart being connected to the mall is fairly common in Canada, not so much in the US. (Same with other discount stores – a majority of Zellers stores are still in malls, but it’s rarer to find, say, a K-Mart or Target in one south of the border.)
When Wal-Mart entered Canada by taking over Woolco in 1994, most of their stores were located in malls. They’ve moved many of them to standalone locations, but they’ve actually expanded some of their other mall stores like St. Vital.
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itami
June 6th, 2008 at 2:59 pm
well i am from Winnipeg Manitoba Canada and the mall has changed ALOT from 2001,
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Connie
September 19th, 2008 at 10:57 am
Having lived in Winnipeg all my life specifically in the Garden City area, I can say, Garden City is one of the smallest malls in Winnipeg. They like many other malls in Winnipeg open early so people can come in and walk the mall (for exercise) before the stores open. Given the winter temperatures here, that is a great feature.
Sears (Simpson Sears) seems to reinvent itself in this mall every few years. If goes from a higher end store to a clearance outlet and back again.
The mall is well maintained and the food court is a popular area for the seniors in the area to meet, have a coffee and chat. The food court offers a wide array of choices, Mexican, Japanese, fresh baked goods and of course A & W as well as other food vendors.
The mall must be doing fairly well since no sooner does one store leave and another opens up. The stores in this mall cater to the whole community from children and teens to adults and seniors. There are jewllers, athletic stores and of course Canadian Tire which provides products for cars, house wares, dishes, yard, camping, hunting and everything in between, including clothing and footwear.
Generally for a shopping day at the mall, most choose to go to Polo Park Mall.
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Chris
November 11th, 2008 at 9:09 pm
Winnipeg has unfortunately lost several enclosed malls in recent years, including all 3 in the st james/charleswood area – all to be replaced by horrible strip malls – they’re fine for California, but not Winnipeg. Among the 7 or so major enclosed malls in Winnipeg, Garden city is one of the worst – it looks really tired and the stores/food court aren’t that great. Polo Park/St Vital Centre/Kildonan Place are the best and most popular malls in the city. Unfortunately, a few malls in Winnipeg have a problem with seniors roaming around in packs – some even wear tracksuits. I’m not sure why malls allow it since they don’t buy anything . Quite a few seniors even lobbied against the closing of Unicity Mall, strictly because they walked there, it was pathetic.
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buzz
December 12th, 2008 at 3:49 am
Alot has changed since you have been to Winnipeg. Garden City has been renovated and rebranded. Charleswood mall was turned into a bad strip mall. St. Vital is always growing beacuse of many new suburbs in the area, but still seems to market a little lower-end (even in traditionally more expensive stores like The Gap, there are ALWAYS sales). Polo Park was COMPLETELY gutted, with a ~50 million dollar, 20 000 sq foot expansion. There are many new stores on the parking lot, which is good that it takes wasted space, but it sucks that they dont keep expanding the mall. The old arena site which is right beside the mall has been vacant for a few years and winnipegers were hoping for a massive expansion to put it on par with mall of america and west edmonton, but now a local company notorious for putting repetitive, ugly, wasteful powercenters everywhere wants to make it an outdoor mall and seperate it from the mall (TERRIBLE IDEA). In a few years the stadium site besid that will be empty and there is huge potential for something spectacular, but the city fails again. Polo park is beautiful now with some great new stores and restaurants. When you were here i think 2 of the major anchors wre Sears and Eatons. When eatons closed sears temporarily moved in their to renovate, tehn moved back. Eatons is now The Bay. The Sport Chek moved to the new South side of the mall and Mcnally Robinson took its place with a major addition to the front. Safeway closed yesterday and they plan on subdividing it into many stores which is great beacause that wing of the mall is dead, not even starbucks brings people there. Over 80% of the stores were renovated last/this year and it really looks great. There is a new Moxies, and joeys and the famous earls Polo is renovating next year. Grant Park Mall is trying to reinvent but it is going nowhere, they just keep adding bad, ugly stores that last for 2 weeks and the change from cineplex odeon to empire thatres did nothing. More ppl in that mall are seniors that fight for tables at Tim Hortons tehn ppl actually shopping. The biggest new “mall” in the city is Kenaston @ MCGillvary. IT is made of 3 massive power centres (Linden Ridge, Kenaston Smart Center and the new Kenaston Common) and a Cinema City that each occupy a coner of a MAJOR intersection. IT has grown at an unbelievable rate (fastest in Canada) and is anchored by Home Outfitters, HomeSense, Safeway, Sobeys, Candian Tire, Home Depot and now also Costco and Rona. They are also building The Brick.
Two major issues right now are Portage Place and cityplace (across from eachother on portage ave, downtown). cityplace has no frontage or entrances on portage (the biggest street downtown), over 50% is vacant, all the stores are other offices or servies like UPS Store. It pretty much serves as a giant skywalk right now. the only cafe in it closed. Portage place is HUGE. 3 stories, staples, IMAX, movie theatre, theatre center. many empty stores, bad, small food court, mmost of its stores along portage are inside access only now, and many ppl are afraid to go there because of all the homeless. Its two big stores McNally Robinson and Holt Renfrew have both closed. A “new” area is emerging downtown with great restaraunts and great local and chain businesses and stores. The Exchange District. Its all early 1900s warehouses converted to stores/ofices/lofts/apts and is boredered by the now presigious WATERFRONT DRIVE with brand new condos and 1st floor retail all along it, facing the river. Its great.
Anyways i think thats enough info for now
you should come visit soon!!!
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Heather
February 8th, 2009 at 12:26 am
I’m from Winnipeg, and i guess we’re quite special. Altho i live in the south end of the city and theres not really any enclosed malls near by. Well theres on but inside theres a safeway, a zellars, a hair place, and a dollar store. not very exciting. to get to a decent mall from here, you have to go to st vital centre. but apart from that, the only nearby enclosed mall is polo park. the main reason i use the enclosed malls is becasue in the summer its too hot to go outside for too long, and in the winter, you can get frickin frostbite in 2-5 minutes, never mind wandering around a stripmall for an hour. So i think that if u want malls, come to winnipeg. but they’re really not that exciting. edmonton may have less malls, but they have the west edmonton mall. minneapolis has the mall of america. and the malls in the states always seem to have better store. hollister, abercrombie. but we do have an american apparel. too bad its in osbourne villagem, and not in a nearby enclosed mall. oh well, come visit us in winnipeg soon =)
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Darren
April 4th, 2009 at 1:27 am
I used to live in the North End of Winnipeg back in the 70’s when Garden City Shopping Center was at it’s hayday. I remember they had a Dominion Grocery store located inside the mall. It had one of the conveyor belts that the clerks used to put your groceries onto and then you would drive your car to the front of the store and have one of the associates put your groceries into your car. There used to be a Cole’s Bookstore, the Ye Ole Hobby Shop close to Laura Secord. This was before the food court. Eatons was labelled as Eatons Fashion Center. The Beaver Lumber store was the home hardware store. There used to be a restaurant located in the Sears store at one time. The Famous Players Cinema, before they cut it into two screens always played Disney Movies. I remember seeing the Witch Mountain movies there along with several other Disney films. Man, I miss the good old days lol.
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Dizzy
June 28th, 2009 at 4:33 pm
I’m surprized that Cityplace isn’t included here; it’s about 50-75% empty…and the only point of redemption there is that the food court is pretty busy all the time.
The security guards are seriously harsh (they complain when use an electrical outlet for whatever reason). If I broke out the camera to take pictures, they’d probably beat me up.
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smack
November 13th, 2009 at 1:21 pm
If you want malls, then Edmonton is the place. Edmonton guys..Edmonton….
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