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  #61  
Old Posted May 1, 2007, 6:07 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by malek View Post
what ?? maybe I'm mistaken it for some other shopping mall, the one I was posting about is on the service road of Decarie highway. All white metal and glass!

Decarie Square is the one with a SAAQ office and a Pizza Hut on the corner, just south of CP's track.
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  #62  
Old Posted May 1, 2007, 6:49 PM
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Downtown Edmonton also had:
-Manulife II (now a medical lab)
-City Centre (now Commerce Place and paritally converted to office space) - this place was unbeliveably posh. When it first opened it had a handful of upscale clothing stores.
-Galleria on Jasper (now owned by University of Alberta)
-Underground floors of Edmonton Centre and Eaton Centre (now used for parking). The underground level of Edmonton Center had a food court, grocery store and several other stores. The underground at Eaton Center was originally an 18 hole minigolf course surrounded by stores. It was later reonvated to 9 holes plus food court.
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  #63  
Old Posted May 1, 2007, 7:47 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Doug View Post
Downtown Edmonton also had:
-Manulife II (now a medical lab)
-City Centre (now Commerce Place and paritally converted to office space) - this place was unbeliveably posh. When it first opened it had a handful of upscale clothing stores.
-Galleria on Jasper (now owned by University of Alberta)
-Underground floors of Edmonton Centre and Eaton Centre (now used for parking). The underground level of Edmonton Center had a food court, grocery store and several other stores. The underground at Eaton Center was originally an 18 hole minigolf course surrounded by stores. It was later reonvated to 9 holes plus food court.
aslight correction - only 1/4 of the underground levels at Edmonton Center were taken out for parking - both food courts still remain in their same location.
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  #64  
Old Posted May 1, 2007, 7:57 PM
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Another one for Montreal:

Place Bonaventure


Once there was a mall in that monstrosity. Beginning in the late 80s, it started a severe decline with the development of several other downtown malls to the north (Eaton's Centre, Place Montreal Trust, Place Mont-Royale, etc.)

The monster under construction (1965-1967); at the time, the world's largest single building in square footage:


Here is a snapshot of the former retail area:


Today, there is less than 22K of retail, versus 197K before the renovations.

Today:


Other dead downtown malls in Montreal include Place du Canada, and Place Victoria.
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  #65  
Old Posted May 1, 2007, 8:08 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by MolsonExport View Post


Other dead downtown malls in Montreal include Place du Canada, and Place Victoria.
These two don't exist anymore. More like ghost malls.
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  #66  
Old Posted May 1, 2007, 8:09 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by MolsonExport View Post
Another one for Montreal:

Place Bonaventure


Once there was a mall in that monstrosity. Beginning in the late 80s, it started a severe decline with the development of several other downtown malls to the north (Eaton's Centre, Place Montreal Trust, Place Mont-Royale, etc.)

The monster under construction (1965-1967); at the time, the world's largest single building in square footage:


Here is a snapshot of the former retail area:


Today, there is less than 22K of retail, versus 197K before the renovations.

Today:


Other dead downtown malls in Montreal include Place du Canada, and Place Victoria.
I've been told that there's a whole book on the Place Bonaventure development debacle... might anyone know anything about that?
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  #67  
Old Posted May 1, 2007, 8:16 PM
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Originally Posted by MolsonExport View Post
Other dead downtown malls in Montreal include Place du Canada, and Place Victoria.

Place Victoria is it the one under the Tour de la Bourse?
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  #68  
Old Posted May 1, 2007, 8:42 PM
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Since Vid is slow to this thread, I’ll start the deathlist for Thunder Bay.

First off, the downtown malls. In the mid-70’s the city decided to “revitalize” the cores (remember, T Bay was created thru the amalgamtion of Fort William and Port Arthur) by building downtown malls ala Toronto’s Eaton Centre. In the north was Keskus – a Finnish word that roughly translates in “white elephant mall that will be torn down in 30 years to make way for a Casino”. Either that or “meeting place”.

Couldn’t find any images of it in its prime, but here is how it looked in 1998-9 …

I remember when it first opened and the impact it had. It really was a good mall that did decent business, that is until the Eaton’s closed. After that, the writing was on the wall. Too bad as it offered one of the best views of the Sleeping Giant from a “plus 15” type walkway over Park street.

The plus side is that people can now go to the same physical location and lose all their money in the charity casino!!

The city was less colourful in naming the downtown mall in the south core – Victoriaville. (the main shopping street is Victoria Ave – pretty witty eh!). While Keskus was built without closing off any roads (as mentioned above, it had a skyway to span two city blocks), in Victoriaville the city decided to close off and enclose the most important business intersection in the south in order to make the mall a destination. Makes sense to me since the area would certainly retain it’s vibrancy during the 2 years it would take to construct the damn thing.

I remember when it first opened and how they “dressed” up a diesel bus like an old time trolley car and had it driving around with Victoriaville Mall written in the side and local actors dressed in 1920’s garb. I guess the tie-in was that just like the Depression that followed the 20’s, Victoriaville would soon be entering a time of economic ruin. Funny thing is even when it opened, there were empty storefronts and I don’t remember it ever being full of retail. Over the years nearly anything of shopping value left, hell the city even moved the Library annex out of it since there was so little foot traffic.

One “cool” feature of Victoriaville was how it was integrated into the surrounding streets. Rather than having an abrubt mall entrance, the city built heated awnings running up Victoria ave east for 1 block to help transition people to the mall. I guess back then people in Thunder Bay had a fear of going through doors or something? Anyway, like other cities that tried heated awnings (Ottawa), they soon discovered that the only people who really liked them were the homeless, and there were much better ways to make them happy.

While the awnings were taken down I the early 80’s, the city has recently approved removal of the entire mall and the re-opening of Victoria and Syndicate roads to cars.

In addition to the dead core malls, suburban T Bay is really a hospice of dying malls: Northwood, Thunder Bay Mall and County Fair. Intercity (“where the city meets”) is the only surviving mall in the city and that is being generous. (BTW, Vid, if you do read this I don’t consider Granview a mall).

Sorry for the diatribe, but in my experience, it seems that this may be one area where T Bay leads in the country (dead/dying malls): Out of 6 malls that existed in 1983, only 1 is really alive. But since the whole city is dying a real slow death, this is no surprise.
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  #69  
Old Posted May 1, 2007, 8:47 PM
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Originally Posted by MolsonExport View Post
Hell, I certainly remember the old MIDDLEGATE MALL (on the Kingsway, about 3 kms down the road from Metrotown, in Burnaby). I used to work on Kingsway in Burnaby in 1995. What a shitty mall that place was. It had no roof, but otherwise was just another crummy dying mall.

The gang at work used to make jokes, like: "Nice shirt; where'd ya get it-MiddleGate Mall?"
haha

yah it was pretty dire

i think it was anchored by reitmans and a bingo hall - was there a zellers in it too? i forget... and the parking lot was so big and never really that full - such a difference now
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  #70  
Old Posted May 1, 2007, 9:00 PM
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oh henderson centre in coquitlam which is across from coq centre is dead - it never took off and there is only a handful of stores - it does have an asian grocery store which is fairly busy - but T&T is across the street in coq centre which is always busier

I think Henderson's biggest mistake was building the food court on the second floor, instead of the first floor with the supermarket that is its biggest draw.

The only reason it has that supermarket is because T&T wouldn't set up shop in that area way back when. It was even started by somebody who used to be with T&T.

It should revive itself after a few more highrises go up in the area though.

Quote:
Originally Posted by clooless View Post
Having lived in Vancouver and Calgary both for a number of years I can add a few to the list.

Vancouver/GVRD:[list][*]Royal City Centre (once Woolworth's Centre) in New Westminster. After Woolworth's went belly up stores started to leave and it was a while before Zellers moved in to occupy the old Woolworth's location. The design looks very much if not exactly like the London Galleria, so I suspect it was designed, built and owned by the same company. As with the London Galleria, the top level is now devoid of shops and almost entirely occupied with an HSBC call centre.
That would be Woodwards.

Not only did Woodwards' demise, but also Skytrain must have killed all these secondary minor malls. If it ain't Metrotown...get out of town.
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  #71  
Old Posted May 1, 2007, 9:03 PM
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BTW, Molson, can you please shrink really big pictures before posting them?

They should have something built into the message board to automatically shrink big images and enable enlargement by clicking, like IPB does.
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  #72  
Old Posted May 1, 2007, 9:03 PM
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-The third floor of Park Lane is dead, it used to have shops, then they all moved out. Eventually an ING office was built in part of it, and most of the rest is still for rent. Strange, considering the lower two floors have some of the highest sales east of Montreal.

-The second floor of Scotia Square was renovated in the 90s, they removed most of the shops there, it's really quiet. Today it has two call centres, for Aliant and Scotiabank.

-Village at Bayers Road (formerly the Bayers Road Shopping Centre), as mentioned earlier, is pretty dead. It was actually the first mall in Halifax. I think the only real draw there today is the bowling alley, I'm not sure if Zellers moved out or not.

-West End Mall, I'm not in here often, but Halifax Shopping Centre right across the street pretty much renders it useless to most people. The only real draw is the Bay next door, and the Access Nova Scotia (that is, I think this mall basically survives on people coming to get their driver's licenses renewed).

Park Lane's failing third floor, used to be mostly identical in layout to the lower floor:



Compare to the successful second floor:

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  #73  
Old Posted May 1, 2007, 9:13 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by MolsonExport View Post

The monster under construction (1965-1967); at the time, the world's largest single building in square footage:
Wonder what they had to remove in order to make this building a reality...
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  #74  
Old Posted May 1, 2007, 9:14 PM
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Originally Posted by SunCoaster View Post
Even though this 'dead mall' is from Hamilton it looks eerily similar in style to Eaton's Centre in downtown Edmonton ... Eaton's Centre used to be quite vibrant and upscale ... well that was until Eaton's went belly up about 10 years ago ... since then the mall has done steadily downhill with fewer and fewer tenants ... mind you I haven't been there for a few years ... do any of you Edmonton forumers know if Eaton's Centre is still a disaster or has it revitalized itself?[/QUOTE]



Looks just like Eaton's Centre in Calgary. I see a trend appearing here...
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  #75  
Old Posted May 1, 2007, 9:20 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by shreddog View Post
In the north was Keskus – a Finnish word that roughly translates in “white elephant mall that will be torn down in 30 years to make way for a Casino”.
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  #76  
Old Posted May 1, 2007, 9:44 PM
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Originally Posted by entheosfog View Post
Even though this 'dead mall' is from Hamilton it looks eerily similar in style to Eaton's Centre in downtown Edmonton ... Eaton's Centre used to be quite vibrant and upscale ... well that was until Eaton's went belly up about 10 years ago ... since then the mall has done steadily downhill with fewer and fewer tenants ... mind you I haven't been there for a few years ... do any of you Edmonton forumers know if Eaton's Centre is still a disaster or has it revitalized itself?


Looks just like Eaton's Centre in Calgary. I see a trend appearing here...[/QUOTE]

looks exactly like the one in Victoria too - it used to be an eatons centre
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  #77  
Old Posted May 1, 2007, 9:48 PM
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how about nanaimo? when i lived there in 1990/1991 the downtown mall was really dead - sears had pulled out and only london drugs was left to anchor it - they renovated the old sears part into smaller stores but i don't recall any stores moving in

sears moved to rutherford mall which was not as busy as woodgrove was at that time - sears certainly boosted it though i think

but i guess with both woodwards and eatons dying leaving woodgrove with no major anchors it must have died a bit - i think i heard there was a car dealership in that mall now
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  #78  
Old Posted May 1, 2007, 10:39 PM
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It is funny how similar these places look:



Victoria:


(pic from www.inlingua.ca)


(pic from www.tourismvictoria.com)

Victoria's Eaton's/Bay Centre had some tough years and the top floor is indeed a misfit, but the mall itself seems to be doing very well now. I was in there during the week maybe a month ago and the place was packed. Could the recent surge in downtown condo construction be the reason? Time will tell, I suppose.
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  #79  
Old Posted May 1, 2007, 10:41 PM
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Victoria's Eaton's/Bay Centre had some tough years and the top floor is indeed a misfit
Have they thought about turning it into office space?
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  #80  
Old Posted May 1, 2007, 10:45 PM
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Hamilton's old Eaton Centre was built in 1990. Before 1990 there was a different Eaton store in the downtown. When was Victoria or Edmonton Eaton Centre was built? Probably the same architect company.
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