Saskatoon’s economy is heavily driven by the area’s richness in natural reserves: potash, oil, and agriculture.  And, according to its Wikitravel article, Saskatoon is known as the ‘Paris of the Prairies’ due to its many bridges, Art Nouveau architecture, and cultural sophistication.  Paris it is definitely not, but Saskatoon does exhibit a somewhat surprising amount of cultural sophistication, many restaurants, eclectic shops and museums one would not expect in a city hovering a couple hundred miles above eastern Montana and similarly distant from other large cities in Canada.   

Saskatoon’s retail economy is mostly centered along three major strips in town:  Circle Drive on the north side, 22nd Street West, and 8th Avenue East.  All 6 of Saskatoon’s enclosed malls are located on or relatively close to these areas, and the largest mall in Saskatoon, Midtown Plaza, is smack dab in the middle of downtown.

Midtown Plaza opened in 1969-1970, centered around the former site of Sasktoon’s main rail station, which was relocated to the west side during a major downtown redevelopment effort.  The redevelopment also included a major performing arts center (or, centre, if we’re trying to be native), TCU Place, and a large office tower, The Tower at Midtown, as well as a new downtown freeway, and another bridge.  Paris, watch out.

When it first opened, Midtown Plaza was only about half its current size, consisting of a single level mall with 60 stores and services, anchored by Simpson-Sears and Eatons, with a Dominion supermarket as well as a Famous Players movie theatre.

Throughout the remaining decades, Midtown Plaza has expanded and changed in many ways.  First, the Simpsons-Sears lost the Simpsons and became simply Sears.  In the mid-1980s, Dominion closed all their Saskatchewan operations and the former supermarket space became a food court by the late-1980s.  Then, in the early 1990s, the inline retail space at Midtown Plaza nearly doubled in size as a second level was added.  In the late 1990s, the entire Eaton’s chain folded and The Bay moved from down the street to occupy the space.  The movie theatre closed in the late 1990s as well, and its space was eventually taken over by a renovated, expanded food court in 2007. 

Scotia Centre, located across the street from Midtown Plaza, is a much smaller enclosed mall which winds through the lobby of the Bank of Nova Scotia building.  It opened in the late 1980s on the site of the former Capitol movie theatre, and features several shops as well as a small food court.

We visited Midtown Plaza and Scotia Centre in July 2009 and took the pictures featured here.  Leave some of your thoughts or experiences in the comments. 

So far, the largest shopping center we’ve featured on this site is the massive Mall of America in suburban Minneapolis, Minnesota.  On a recent trip which brought us through the intermountain west and western Canada, we were able to visit the only North American mall larger than the Mall of America:  West Edmonton Mall in Canada.

Edmonton is the provincial capital of Alberta and a city with a metropolitan population of just over one million.  Not only a center of government, Edmonton is also the northern anchor of the Edmonton-Calgary technology corridor, one of four regions of Canada comprising 50 percent of that country’s population.  Edmonton is also home to numerous institutions of higher education, including the flagship campus of the University of Alberta.  In addition, Edmonton currently holds the moniker “Oil Capital of Canada” – since the 1940s, Edmonton has been best known for its petrochemical industries due to the abundance of natural energy resources nearby; and, even though Edmonton’s economy is diversified today, the natural resources energy reserves in northern Alberta are second only to Saudi Arabia’s in the entire world.

In the late 1970s, amid Edmonton’s largest boom in growth resulting from petroleum sector jobs, an Iranian immigrant family, the Ghermezians, embarked upon a plan to build a super-regional mall on the west side of Edmonton.  The project, however, did not open as the behemoth 6 million square-foot supermall that exists today.

Instead, the West Edmonton Mall opened in September, 1981 with a modest – at least compared to today’s size – selection of only 220 stores totalling just over one million square feet on two levels.  The mall opened along 170th street between 90th and 87th Avenue.   Upon opening, the anchors were Sears, Eaton’s, and The Bay, and the mall cost C$200,000 to build.  The original 1981 mall still exists today as Phase I, and is still anchored by Sears and The Bay, but Zellers rounds out the third anchor as it moved from Phase II in 2000 to replace Eatons, which went out of business in 1999.  A large food court, Gourmet World, is located in Phase I and connects Phase I to the mall’s indoor amusement park.

In 1983, West Edmonton Mall Phase II opened, doubling the mall’s size, giving it destinational status and worldwide media coverage.  Unlike Phase I, which was comprised of only retail, Phase II incorporated recreation and entertainment venues to complement the retail and give a better overall experience. Over 220 stores were added in the expansion, along with an NHL-sized ice rink, known as the Ice Palace, and the Fantasyland amusement park, which continues to be the largest indoor amusement park in the world.  A large Zellers was also added in Phase II, which eventually relocated to replace the Eatons in Phase I when it closed in 1999.  Today, the original Zellers is now a Winners, flanking the south side of the ice skating rink.

1985 saw the opening of Phase III, largest addition at West Edmonton Mall to date, giving it the status of the largest mall in the world, a title it would hold until 2004 when several Asian malls surpassed its size.  Included in the Phase III expansion were a large Canadian Tire superstore,  a Woodward’s department store at the western end of the mall, The Brick, London Drugs, as well as more entertainment options such as miniature golf and two themed sections:  Europa Boulevard and Bourbon Street.  A second food court also exists on the lower level in Phase III, called Gourmet Court.

The entertainment options comprise the largest real estate in the Phase III addition, and include the World Waterpark, the world’s largest indoor water park featuring an 83-foot slide, complete with a wave pool capable of generating 6-foot waves.  There is also a bungee jump where one can dangle directly over the wave pool, several major water slide rides, and a tube river thinger.

In addition to the water park, Phase III also includes Sea Life Caverns and Deep Sea Derby, a deep salt-water lake located in the middle of the Phase III addition under a massive glassy, galleria-style roof.  At one point there were dolphins and other sea life, as well as submarine rides, but today the submarine rides are closed and the featured sea mammals are three sea lions named Pablo, Kelpie, and Clara.  The Deep Sea Adventure area is anchored by a life-size replica of Columbus’ ship Santa Maria, which first appeared at Vancouver’s Expo 86.  The ship has been used for special events such as fundraising, but is unfortunately not accessible to the public.

The final major entertainment venue to open with Phase III was Red’s, an entertainment complex consisting of a bowling alley, pool hall, music stage, arcade, and restaurant.  However, in 2006, Red’s chose not to renew their lease and the former Red’s area was separated into three venues.  The music stage and restaurant were converted to Edmonton Events Centre, and are home to many Canadian and international bands such as Switchfoot, GWAR, Lifehouse, and Theory of a Deadman, just to name a few.  The arcade and bowling alley were renamed Ed’s Rec Room, and the mini-golf area became Putt ‘n’ Glow.

The two themed “streets” which opened in 1985 with the Phase III expansion were modeled after Europe and New Orleans.  Europa Boulevard features an eclectic array of shops along a multistory European streetscape facade.  However, the shops are only at the bottom of the facade – which is located on the 2nd level of the mall – with rentable conference rooms  on the levels above.  A large Petcetera store and a Gold’s Gym are located near or along Europa Boulevard.  Some of the shops along Europa Boulevard feature high fashion and stores with price points significantly higher than in other areas of the mall.  In addition, Europe Boulevard features a European-inspired and themed coffee shop, Cafe Europa.

Bourbon Street, the second themed area to open in 1985 with Phase III, is designed to mimic a nighttime streetscape of New Orleans.  Featuring many chain restaurants such as Hooters, Earl’s, Tony Roma’s, Boston’s Pizza, Albert’s and others, there are also options for tippling as this is the mall’s largest concentration of bars as well.  Bourbon Street also features a comedy club and mannequins along the street depicting street people of New Orleans.  The lights along Bourbon Street are intentionally kept darker than the rest of the mall to inspire a nighttime feel.

The 1990s saw success and a continued transformation for West Edmonton Mall, and by the end of the decade the mall received its latest and smallest expansion, Phase  IV.   In 1990, a 10,000 square-foot casino came to West Edmonton Mall, located on the north side of Phase II adjacent to the indoor theme park.  Today, the Palace Casino is over 64,000 square feet on two levels, and features table games as well as slots and a full bar.  In addition, sometime during the early 1990s Woodward’s department store, which opened in 1985 and flanked the western end of the mall in Phase III, closed and became a second location of The Bay.  Then, in the mid 1990s, the large Canadian Tire store in Phase III closed, leaving a large hole on level two that sat vacant for the rest of the decade.

In 1995, the Walt Disney Company apparently got wind of West Edmonton Mall’s indoor theme park using the name Fantasyland, a name Disney uses for a themed area in most of their parks, which resulted in a successful cease-and-desist order on the part of the Mouse; West Edmonton Mall’s indoor theme park became Galaxyland – featuring a space theme – in July, 1995.  Its mascot, Cosmo, is featured throughout the park and also the entire mall.  However, the Fantasyland hotel, located across the mall near its southeast corner on the lower level of Phase III, has retained its name – Disney be damned.  While we’re on topic, there’s also another hotel part of the mall, though not physically attached; the West Edmonton Inn is located across 90th Avenue to the north of the mall,  next to the overflow/large vehicle parking.

In the late 1990s, The Bay, which operated two locations in the mall at this point, closed their second store in Phase III.  This closure paved the way for Phase IV, West Edmonton Mall’s most recent development.  Phase IV was actually more of a  redevelopment rather than an expansion, as the previous 3 phases were, and it redeveloped the former Woodward’s/Bay location at the western end of the mall.  Phase IV opened in 1998, and included a Chapters book box with a Starbucks, a two-level HMV with its own performing stage, a Famous Players theatre and IMAX 3-D, and Playdium, an arcade game amusement facility.  By 2005, Playdium had closed and the space was rented to several Edmonton-area radio stations:  790 CFCW, K-97, and 96.3 Capital FM, and in 2007, the Famous Players theatre was rebranded as Scotiabank Theatre.  Today, Scotiabank theatre is the only movie theatre at the mall, though at one point two other theatres existed elsewhere in the mall; one of those former theatres was converted to the West49 Skatepark.

In 2002, the large vacant area left by the mid-1990s closure of Canadian Tire became the third themed area of the mall, Chinatown.  Anchored by T&T Supermarket, an Asian supermarket from British Columbia, the area features Chinese decor as well as Asian-related retail and restaurants which complement the theme.  This ethnic area seems to be a hit, especially considering the number of area residents with Asian heritage.

With the completion of Phase IV, West Edmonton Mall solidified its position as the largest mall in the world – at least until 2004, when Asia began building larger malls.  Currently, West Edmonton Mall contains more than 6 million square feet of space and over 800 stores and services.  The Mall of America, by comparison, has only 4.5 million square feet of space (including amusement parks and other non-retail ventures) and just over 520 stores and services.  There are over 20,000 parking spaces, and more than 23,000 people are employed on the property.  West Edmonton Mall receives between 60,000 and 150,000 visitors daily depending on the day and season, and the mall is valued at nearly C$1 Billion.  West Edmonton Mall is, like the Mall of America, fully owned and operated by the Ghermezian family’s Triple Five Group.

As if all of the above weren’t enough, West Edmonton Mall has even more features we haven’t even mentioned, and is also planning for future expansion.  In addition to everything above, there’s an indoor shooting range, a non-denominational chapel, a petting zoo, a set of flamingos who are currently on “vacation” in Winnipeg, and an internet cafe.  High speed internet is available throughout the mall - for purchase - with WEMiSphere access codes you can buy in any guest services location or both hotels.  Charging for internet is kind of lame, no?

In mid-2009, U.S. retailer Bed Bath and Beyond is opening above the food court in Phase III.  In addition, another expansion is underway for an additional 320,000 square-feet of retail space, a sports facility, a 600-unit apartment building, and more parking.  Will this be called Phase V?  And where exactly will it be located?  It wasn’t exactly clear to us.

We visited West Edmonton Mall in July, 2009 and took the pictures featured here.  We found the mall to be as impressive and amazing as expected – if not more – but we were really struck at how dated much of the mall seems.  Most of the mall was completed by 1985, and the mainline areas of stores still have decor reminiscent of the 1980s – featuring dark wood, darker color schemes, and mirrors galore.  Even the most recent Phase IV, completed in 1998, is already showing its age with its liberal use of neon.  The mall is also a bit more sprawly than its sister in the U.S., the Mall of America.  Where the Mall of America is a somewhat boring square design on three – and sometimes four – levels, West Edmonton Mall leaves a bit more to the imagination with its cavernous design, inviting the visitor to explore what’s down every rogue hallway and beyond.  While the base design of WEM is a two-level “T” shape, the addition of side corridors featuring separate themes - such as Chinatown or Bourbon Street - gives the visitor a very inviting reason to go down these shorter corridors.  Both food courts are also located away from the central right-of-way, too, as are all of the amusement activities, whereas in the Mall of America all of these things are centralized.    We’re not necessarily arguing for one or the other, but it’s intriguing since both centers were designed and still managed by the same family. 

As always, enjoy the photos and feel free to leave your own comments and experiences.  Also, be sure to check out the 12 short videos I took in the mall, which are posted on my YouTube page.

Located on the west shore of Lake Ontario, Hamilton is an anchor city for the Golden Horseshoe, one of North America’s largest urban agglomerations extending from Toronto and its suburbs all the way around to the Niagara Region of St. Catharines and Niagara Falls, including Hamilton, Barrie, Mississauga, and more. According to the 2006 Canadian census, Hamilton has a population of just over 500,000 residents. The city is the third largest in Ontario and the ninth largest in all of Canada. Historically, Hamilton grew from manufacturing roots, and the city is known from many who pass by it on the QEW Expressway for its prominent steel mills.

But Hamilton is more than heavy industry; it is, instead, a multicultural melting pot with a growing economy and a thriving culture of museums, castles, gardens, and much more. Also of note is the fact that the city is bisected by a “mountain” – really a large and very steep hill called the Niagara Escarpment, but it separates Hamilton into “upper” and “lower” areas. Upper Hamilton includes the mostly suburban and residential areas west of the downtown core and away from the lake, and lower Hamilton is comprised of mostly the urban core of downtown and the low-lying areas to the east along Lake Ontario’s shore, including the heavy manufacturing areas.

In the middle of lower Hamilton’s downtown are many skyscrapers which make Hamilton’s skyline impressive, and two large urban enclosed malls which are connected and functionally operate as one, and will be referred to for practical purposes in this article as one mall: Hamilton City Centre and Lloyd Jackson Square. Located right in the center of the city, the malls share several city blocks and are bounded by King Street, Bay Street, York Boulevard and James Street. Named after former Hamilton mayor Lloyd Jackson, his namesake mall opened in 1970. The 1970s were a booming period of construction around the mall which also put up several tall skyscrapers which attach to the mall’s interior walkways, including Stelco (steel) Tower, Landmark Place and the Bank of Montreal pavilion. The main anchor to the malls was Eaton’s department store, which had been present in downtown Hamilton for decades prior. In 1977, the second phase of the mall opened including a six story office tower and in the 1980s a Sheraton and 19,000-seat coliseum opened, all attached to the mall.

However, harder times came to Hamilton in the 1990s, affecting its economy as the manufacturing jobs dwindled in the area. In 1999, a hard blow came to the Hamilton City Centre (then Eaton Centre) portion of the mall block when Eaton’s went out of business nationwide. Sears, who bought Eatons, declined to reinvest in the troubled mall and instead sold its interest and today a portion of the space is Quebec-based Hart discount department store. At that point, that portion of the mall was officially renamed Hamilton City Centre from Eaton Centre.

Today, the malls exist mainly as a support structure for people working and staying downtown. Much of the designated retail space in both the Lloyd Jackson and especially the Hamilton City Centre portions of the mall have been converted to office or other uses, or simply remain vacant. However, there is still a significant retail portion in the cavernous, winding mall, mostly centered around the large food court and adjacent to the very popular indoor farmer’s market attached to the mall.

The design and decor of the malls is also remarkable. The Lloyd Jackson and Hamilton City Centre portions of the mall, while connected and functionally one mall, are styled differently. In terms of design, the City Centre portion can effectively be considered one dead-end leg of the Lloyd Jackson center, which is larger. However, the City Centre portion is three stories whereas the Lloyd Jackson portion is mostly one story and windy. See the pictures for a better explanation of the confusing layout; we got lost at least once in the mall, which we were kind of amused by. In terms of decor, the Hamilton City Centre portion is largely a more modern, 1990s design, whereas much of the Lloyd Jackson portion is dated to the 1980s or 1970s.

Take a look at the photos we captured of the mall and downtown Hamilton from 2006, and feel free to leave your comments and stories as usual.

Located in the sprawling megasuburb of Mississauga, Ontario, Square One Shopping Centre is one of the largest malls in Canada and the second largest in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA), behind Eaton Centre downtown.  As a mega-regional mall, Square One draws from an impressive trade area encompassing the entire Golden Horseshoe, a term for the highly populated arc of provincial Ontario surrounding the shores of Lake Ontario from Greater Toronto to Fort Erie, also including Hamilton, Niagara Falls, and St. Catharines.  With over 8 million people, one out of four Canadians lives within the Golden Horseshoe and thus Square One’s trade area, making it a very important mall.  The mall itself is a monster melange of stores and services in a very unique floorplan, as a result of many different updates and expansions throughout the years, but we’re also interested in how the mall has functioned as the centerpiece for the City of Mississauga since its inception in 1974.

Indeed, the City of Mississauga’s existance is relatively recent, and moreso amazing is the fact that it has grown to a population of over 700,000 residents and has more than doubled in the past 20 years.  Mississauga emerged from the amalgamation of several existing communities, some of them over a century old themselves, such as Port Credit, Streetsville, Malton, Cooksville and Clarkson.  However, most of present-day Mississauga was agricultural until even the first half of the 20th century.  

By the 1960s, however, a lot of post-WWII suburban-growth had spilled over from Toronto and many settlements had sprung up such as Meadowvale and Erin Mills, so a provincial decree set up the Town of Mississauga in 1968, which amalgamated many of these towns into one geographic giant.  Then, in 1974, Mississauga incorporated as a city, and with it came the plans for the new city center which was to feature government offices, as well as a gigantic mall.  Are we loving this already?

Square One Shopping Centre opened in late 1973, just a few months prior to Mississauga being officially incorporated, in order to provide a centerpiece for the newly formed city.  It is located at Highway 403 and Hurontario Street.  Square One opened anchored by Dominion, Woolco, The Bay, and Sears.  Today, however, only a shadow of the original mall exists as it has expanded many times into the piecemeal success story it is today.

As mentioned, Mississauga grew rapidly as a bedroom suburb for Toronto during the 1980s and 1990s, and is still growing rapidly even today.  To accomodate this sprawl, Square One was expanded several times during the 1980s, adding over 80 stores and a million more square feet in selling space.  Woolco closed in the 1990s as that chain went out of business, and it was replaced by a 220,000 square-foot Wal-Mart store.  When Eatons closed in 1999, it was replaced with Canada’s largest Zellers.  In 2000, the most recent expansion occurred.  Called Cityside, it added a Cineplex Odeon theatre as well as a more upscale, modern wing featuring many fashion designer boutiques as well as stores from the ’States.  Then, most recently, the entire center was given the once-over and remodeled, culminating in late 2006.  Three distinct neighborhoods exist within the mall with carpeted transitional areas. 

The overall design and decor of Square One definitely reflect how the mall has changed in pieces over the years.  The modern, most recent addition features marbled floors and an overall whitewashed look which has been popular in malls as of recent.  The older wings vary, from the Milanese Galleria-style glass enclosure popular in the 1980s to darker 1970s tones with dark tiled flooring.  Really, the mall is amazing because it has nearly every period of decor imaginable.  In addition, the way the mall is set up is similar to that of the Mall of America, only modified and not as tall.  A square perimeter of enclosed space connects all four anchors on the upper level, with a triangular series of hallways appended onto one end.  The lower level is more curiously set up, with hallways zig-zagging off a main corridor connecting Zellers to the food court area.

So what’s next for the future of Square One?  Today, Mississauga has over 700,000 residents and is Canada’s sixth largest city.  Yet Toronto, the country’s largest city, is only 20 minutes away.  So albeit a giant, Mississauga lives in the shadows of its older big brother next door.  However, Mississauga is currently in the process of repositioning its image from suburban bedroom community to a city with its own legs, and its own real urban downtown.  As such, the city has forged a relatively new downtown skyline centered near the mall featuring skyscrapers of 30 to 50 stories.  In 2006, a design competition was held to build another 50-story condominum tower, which will be visually shocking and called Absolute World.  In addition, numerous community festivals are centered around this new urban core of Mississauga, which once again was originally predicated on a mall which still thrives. 

There are other large malls in the GTA, but only Square One has become the realized centerpiece for an entire community.  With a great central location between the City of Toronto and the rest of the Golden Horseshoe, Square One will continue to dominate well into the future.  I took the pictures featured with this post in January 2006.  As always, comments and more information is always appreciated.      

It’s been a while since we posted anything from Canada, and we don’t want them to feel left out.  Cloverdale Mall is a 460,000 square foot enclosed mall anchored by Winners, Zellers, and Dominion, a grocery store.  It’s located near the intersection of Dundas St and Highway 427 in the Etobicoke area of west Toronto.  There are 105 stores and services in this community-oriented centre, which trends toward service neighborhood-oriented convenience.  

Perhaps the most interesting thing about Cloverdale Mall is how it exists successfully in the shadow of other malls.  Square One Mall in Mississauga, one of the largest malls in North America, is only a few miles away to the west.  Sherway Gardens, one of the Toronto area’s largest and most upscale malls, is less than a mile south of Cloverdale.  Also, Dixie Outlet Mall, one of Canada’s largest value-oriented malls, is located just two miles away.  While Square One, Sherway Gardens, and Dixie Outlet Mall draw from a larger area, Cloverdale Mall’s offerings mainly serve the local convenience of those in west Toronto and eastern Mississauga.  Cloverdale focuses on service and convenience, whereas the other malls have their niches as well.  However, across Dundas from Cloverdale sits a mostly empty, much smaller, and older enclosed center called Honeydale Mall which has suffered greatly in recent years. 

The decor of Cloverdale Mall is decidedly dated yet well kept, which is also alarming considering the competition immediately surrounding the mall.  There are few vacancies, attesting to the fact that the locals use this mall frequently.  This represents the main difference between how malls in the U.S. function versus those in Canada.  Many neighborhood centers such as this one are not only enclosed but relatively large, and often exist in the shadow of other, larger malls more similar to those in the U.S.

I visited Cloverdale Mall in January 2006 and took the pictures featured below.  If you have more information, especially about Cloverdale’s history, feel free to leave some comments. 

Depending on the outcomes of the upcoming elections, it’s quite possible that many of us will find on Wednesday that some of our friends are Canadaphiles, or people who have an extreme fondness for (and in many cases, harbor empty threats to move to) Canada. Truth be told, there’s plenty to love about our great neighbor to the north, especially if you have an interest in malls and retail. Sure, they call Kmart “Zellers” (though they’re no longer the same company), and instead of TJMaxx, they have Winners. But in Canada, practically every major shopping center is enclosed (as a sweeping generalization!) and one of the largest malls in the world (The West Edmonton Mall) is up in the great white north.

Downtown Toronto’s Eaton Centre is perhaps Canada’s second-most famous shopping mall. Located in the center of the city between Yonge, Queen, Dundas, and Bay Streets, the 330-store center is the most popular tourist attraction in Toronto, Canada’s largest city. The mall stands on the site of the original flagship Eaton’s store, which was once one of Canada’s premier department store chains. The mall itself, along with the modern 1,000,000 square-foot Eaton’s flagship store, opened in 1977, with a second phase following in 1979. The mall immediately became one of the most successful in North America, and (as required by the city of Toronto), the mall’s interior remains open 24 hours a day since its construction userped several public streets.

The mall’s greatest feature is perhaps its vaulted glass ceiling, which stands an astonishing 127 feet above the first level. It’s easily one of the tallest and grandest malls that I’ve seen, and its busy, active Yonge Street frontage (which is the closest that Canada has to a “Times Square” district) is a sight to behold at night.

The mall today includes Sears (who purchased the bankrupt Eaton’s in 1999, and rebranded them 2001 or 2002ish), H&M, Canadian Tire, and Best Buy spread across 1,600,000 square feet. The Eaton Centre is also connected via skywalk to the nearby flagship of The Bay (or, in Quebec, La Baie), also known as The Hudson’s Bay Company, one of Canada’s largest remaining department store chains.

All of these photos were taken by Prangeway in 2001. Note the presence of Eaton’s rather than Sears!

Constructed in 1971 as Fredericton, New Brunswick’s first enclosed shopping mall, the Fredericton Mall is located at routes 8, 101, and Prospect Street on the city’s south side in the center of the city’s major retail district. While only 221,000 square feet in size, the long, slender mall hosts approximately 60 stores, most catering to relatively utilitarian needs. With Zeller’s, Sobey’s, Staples, and Shoppers Drug Mart as some of the anchors, it’s the kind of small mall that’s common throughout Canada.

While Fredericton Mall was supplanted as the dominant mall for the Fredericton area in 1976 when the Regent Mall was built across the freeway, it continued to do relatively well until our visit in June 2005, hosting much of the overflow from its larger sibling. All photos here were taken on that June 2005 visit on the crappy VGA camera phone. Unfortunately, in the year since, Fredericton Mall has experienced some heavy changes and much of the mall is now being demolished and big-boxed. Sadly, the Fredericton Mall’s days as an enclosed mall have come to an unceremonious end.

Also, a special thanks to Labelscar friend and poster JP Kirby for giving us some great information on this and other New Brunswick Malls! It’s hard to find much background on a lot of the centers up there.

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.   

This is going to be post number 112,495 where I apologize for the quality of the pictures taken with my old camera phone! Sorry! Eventually you’ll get tired of hearing me apologize for this (I know I’ve gotten tired of doing it), but you’ll forgive me when you see gems like these. Even when kicking it VGA-res style like it was still the grunge era, you can tell that the Parkway Mall in Saint John, New Brunswick is a gem. And guess what? It’s kind of in the middle of nowhere. So I probably won’t be back. This is what we get then.

Another thing about this mall: I don’t know anything about it and the good ol’ interweb won’t bail me out this time. I can say this: Saint John is a city of about 70,000, making it the largest in the province of New Brunswick. It’s very much a northern coastal city; it’s a sprawling blue collar city filled with oil tanks and paper mills and shipping ports, and it’s quite unlike most comparable New England cities. Saint John is also notable because–like many Canadian cities–it seems to have about one mall per every 10,000 residents. I saw five of these, but I may have missed two more! Don’t worry, I’ll post some fuzzy pics of those others someday. Eventually.

Parkway Mall is a relatively small center located at the intersection of McAllister Dr. and Westmorland Rd. on Saint John’s east side. It’s located directly across from McAllister Place, the city’s largest shopping mall and the reason I was in the area in the first place. Parkway Mall didn’t come up on my radar beforehand, and came as a very pleasant surprise. Despite being in the middle of the city’s most active retail district, these pictures illustrate that, as of when they were taken in June of 2005, the center had very little left operating inside. If I remember correctly, there was a shoe store and a dollar store, and “The Bargain! Shop,” which only had an exterior entrance.

As you can see, this one is a true dead mall gem. That sad little luncheonette in the center of the main mallway is my favorite; I can only imagine that when it was built, it was probably a really cool place. Those purple and blue stripes look like something I would’ve had on some cheap sneakers about 20 years back, too. The Parkway Mall is simply amazing, and worth a stop if you’re ever in the area (which is admittedly pretty unlikely). If you know any of the history of the mysterious Parkway Mall, please comment!

I figured that we might as well take a detour to a somewhat exotic locale for this strange little mall. In keeping with Canada’s typically crazy mall-building tendencies, the Brookside Mall is one of five (!!) malls serving the greater Fredericton, New Brunswick area. Fredericton is a tidy, attractive little city in central New Brunswick and is the capital of the province. To say this area is remote is a bit of an understatement: Fredericton has only about 50,000 people, and there are almost no suburbs. When you leave Fredericton, you leave–the surrounding areas have almost no population at all. We were really fascinated to find that they actually watch Boston television stations up there–this is a seven hour drive north of Boston!

I saw the Brookside Mall on a road trip up to New Brunswick just about a year ago. This is the lone mall for the northern side of Fredricton, and seems to be emblematic of many smaller Canadian malls: it includes a Zellers, a Sobey’s Supermarket, and a dollar store (in this case, it is the somewhat puzzling “Rossy Fredericton,” which reminded me a bit of Woolworth or Family Dollar).

While not dead, it’s easy to tell from the many vacant storefronts that the Brookside Mall wasn’t really thriving either. It seemed more typical of the kind of malaise that many smaller Canadian malls seem to endure, but quite unlike in the States, the tenants didn’t clear out wholesale. A mall like this one wouldn’t probably even be enclosed in the United States.

Brookside Mall also had kind of an interesting design. From the entrance on Brookside Drive (visible in the above photo) it appeared to be a standard older dumbell-style mall, with Sobey’s and Rossy Fredericton at each end. When using the main entrance, however, you find that there’s a larger hallway that goes straight back, then turns diagonally to the left, and ends at Zellers in the rear of the mall, making the center quite a bit larger than it seems initially. Furthermore, the style of the center (which is more or less laid out like a “V”) lead me to believe that a large empty space in the middle of the V was probably an anchor store of some sort, with entrances by both Rossy Fredericton and Zellers. Turns out I was half right–according to the diagram below, there is an entire wing spanning between Zellers and Rossy Fredericton that was closed off when I was there last year. What a neat floorplan for a smaller mall!

Befitting of its physical remoteness there’s almost nothing about the Brookside Mall on the web, so if you do know something then (as usual) please comment! I did find this leasing page, and a general article about big box development planned for Fredericton and elsewhere in New Brunswick. There’s no satellite imagery of that area, either, though if you feel like you might want to visit the Brookside Mall, here it is. You can zoom out and get a really terrible satellite photo, too, but why would you want to?