Dead Malls of Canada

[Djeffery]

Originally Posted by ssiguy

London had a ridiculous number of malls in the 70s and 80s but now the situation is reversed. Neither White Oaks nor Masonville, the 2 largest in the city, crack the top 50 largest in Canada.

Although if either had the land, the retail nodes around them would have been part of the malls and counting in sq footage. The owners of White Oaks have a huge chunk of property where they were planning to put an IKEA beside the 401. They could basically pickup White Oaks, move it a mile south to this property and put all the other stores they were planning on that site and become a top 10 mall in Canada if they wanted to spend that cash. White Oaks could actually benefit from a new location to be honest. Even after their recent renovation, it's still a crappy mall and has a shitty 70's design. Flatten the place, leave Walmart there, build some apartments and move the rest of the place to the highway.

[Stanz]

Originally Posted by yaletown_fella

Huge Dan Bell (and Rick) fan

It'd be a shame if Place D'Orleans was renovated and stripped of its Pomo character.

Here's a bit of a before/after with my opposite facing pic flipped to mirror the original. I hadn't been there in a long time but they did a good job making the mall as bland as possible compared to its original look. The new food court downstairs looks like a hospital cafeteria.

before and after place d'orleans by F.Stanz, on Flickr

[ue]

Originally Posted by ScreamingViking

Tourism in some cases, but having enough disposable income and demand for retail goods in the area is probably the key one.

Hamilton is on the cusp of having a lot more of the latter. But some parts of downtown were coming back to life before the residential boom began, and I think that was more because they offered something that could not be found elsewhere in the city (e.g., James St. North's galleries, unique shops, restaurants; the monthly Art Crawl helped draw attention to all that too)

I think that the main distinction for whether or not a downtown mall is 'successful' is if the downtown of a city was already vibrant or had some pull in some way. That, or it's the only real mall in town (like Saskatoon). Downtown malls were conceived of to 'save' downtown but they really failed at doing that and the only successful ones were in downtowns that were already healthy (Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal).

[ScreamingViking]

Originally Posted by ue

I think that the main distinction for whether or not a downtown mall is 'successful' is if the downtown of a city was already vibrant or had some pull in some way. That, or it's the only real mall in town (like Saskatoon). Downtown malls were conceived of to 'save' downtown but they really failed at doing that and the only successful ones were in downtowns that were already healthy (Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal).

Definitely. In Hamilton, the office market dried up too and vacancies rose to something above 20%. They're back down now (closer to 10, I think... pre-Covid).

The other factor here was development of Lime Ridge Mall in the early 1980s about a 6 km drive south of downtown. There were other malls in the city before that, but none that large. And of course it had all the latest popular stores. It drew customers from across the suburban "mountain" but from the lower city too, and was relatively easy to get to despite the highways not yet being built (the Linc and Red Hill Valley Parkway). To a lesser extent a new big mall in Burlington that opened in 1990 probably had that effect on people north of the harbour and lake, though an anti-Hamilton sentiment permeated those areas and Burlington already had a mall and good retail options.

Why drive or take the bus downtown when everything is readily available amidst a sea of free parking?

[ScreamingViking]

Originally Posted by Stanz

Here's a bit of a before/after with my opposite facing pic flipped to mirror the original. I hadn't been there in a long time but they did a good job making the mall as bland as possible compared to its original look. The new food court downstairs looks like a hospital cafeteria.

before and after place d'orleans by F.Stanz, on Flickr

Eeesh. What has happened behind the curtain? More of the same treatment?

They've sterilized what seems to have been a warmer and much more visually interesting place.

[MolsonExport]

That is what is always done with repurposed malls. Sterilization and blandification.

[WhipperSnapper]

Yeah, can't have anything distracting from the store fronts. The days of retail with climate controlled winter gardens are history. Glass roofs no longer have a real purpose.

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by ScreamingViking

Eeesh. What has happened behind the curtain? More of the same treatment?

They've sterilized what seems to have been a warmer and much more visually interesting place.

A good portion of the top floor is now a Federal Government "Work Hub". This was a model developed before the pandemic to encourage employees to work from their suburban communities once in a while. I believe that what's behind the curtain is an expansion of that.

[ScreamingViking]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

A good portion of the top floor is now a Federal Government "Work Hub". This was a model developed before the pandemic to encourage employees to work from their suburban communities once in a while. I believe that what's behind the curtain is an expansion of that.

The decor would certainly force one to focus on their work.

Losing the metal frame/cage around the elevator shaft is a shame. Though perhaps there would have been a risk of a disgruntled policy advisor or manager climbing on and threatening harm to him/her self.

[MolsonExport]

The uglification of Canada continues almost unabated. For a while, I thought maybe we had turned the corner on extreme uglification, but with the banal big box barf dumbcentres multiplying, with the stroadification of urban, suburban and exurban landscapes, with snout houses stretching on in every direction for miles on end, with the same ugly midrise buildings with their 3-4 color schemes dominating every city, and relatively few really high quality condo towers, I can only conclude that ugliness is not only here to stay, but it is intensifying.

[JHikka]

Originally Posted by WhipperSnapper

Glass roofs no longer have a real purpose.

Yorkdale still has some glass ceiling, doesn't it? Not disagreeing.

[ue]

Originally Posted by ScreamingViking

Definitely. In Hamilton, the office market dried up too and vacancies rose to something above 20%. They're back down now (closer to 10, I think... pre-Covid).

The other factor here was development of Lime Ridge Mall in the early 1980s about a 6 km drive south of downtown. There were other malls in the city before that, but none that large. And of course it had all the latest popular stores. It drew customers from across the suburban "mountain" but from the lower city too, and was relatively easy to get to despite the highways not yet being built (the Linc and Red Hill Valley Parkway). To a lesser extent a new big mall in Burlington that opened in 1990 probably had that effect on people north of the harbour and lake, though an anti-Hamilton sentiment permeated those areas and Burlington already had a mall and good retail options.

Why drive or take the bus downtown when everything is readily available amidst a sea of free parking?

Edmonton and Winnipeg have a similar issue.

Kingsway Mall was built about 7 blocks north of downtown and is the second largest mall in the city. It was built before the downtown malls and has a good selection of stores. Then WEM was built and even though it was built much further from downtown, it was built around the same time a bunch of Jasper Ave was being ripped up for cut-and-cover LRT subway construction in the '80s, and that, along with the already extant Kingsway, really killed downtown retail for Edmonton. Within a decade Eaton Centre and Edmonton Centre were built but it didn't stand a chance. These two were merged into City Centre Mall after Eaton's folded and were owned by the same company as Kingsway (Oxford), and they tended to focus on the healthier mall (Kingway).

In Winnipeg, Polo Park, which was one of the first enclosed shopping centres in Canada, was built a mere 5km from downtown, down Portage Ave. It's still the largest and most successful mall in Winnipeg. When Eaton's closed, the Bay moved into Polo Park and began neglecting the downtown flagship.

[ue]

Originally Posted by JHikka

Yorkdale still has some glass ceiling, doesn't it? Not disagreeing.

Calgary's circa 2010 renovation of the Core, that city's downtown mall, involved the building of a fantastic new sky light that really adds nice natural light to the mall.


https://cheapparkingcalgary.com/heated-parking/415-intact-place-321-6th-avenue-sw/

[Proof Sheet]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

The uglification of Canada continues almost unabated. For a while, I thought maybe we had turned the corner on extreme uglification, but with the banal big box barf dumbcentres multiplying, with the stroadification of urban, suburban and exurban landscapes, with snout houses stretching on in every direction for miles on end, with the same ugly midrise buildings with their 3-4 color schemes dominating every city, and relatively few really high quality condo towers, I can only conclude that ugliness is not only here to stay, but it is intensifying.

Well aren't you just a beacon of positivity today

Isn't what you described just the Miltonization of society.

[Wigs]

Originally Posted by ue

Calgary's circa 2010 renovation of the Core, that city's downtown mall, involved the building of a fantastic new sky light that really adds nice natural light to the mall.

I was in Calgary when this was completed. It was pretty awesome with one of the largest skylights in Canada, if not North America.
Although a lot of native Calgarians didn't like how they "neutered" the Devonian Gardens. I'm sure it looks more lush now that the plants have had 11-12 years to mature. On a -25 winter's day it was definitely a nice amenity.

I like the mix of white and wood accents. One has to see it in person to truly appreciate.
Before oil & gas sector took a bath, retail vacancy in Calgary was quite low.


Found a recent video from Sept 2021
• Video Link

[manny_santos]

Originally Posted by Djeffery

The downtown London mall now known as Citi Plaza was called Eaton's Square prior to its late 80's expansion to become the Galleria Many called it the Eaton Centre to sound more big city lol. That name was only on the place for most of the 80's after an early decade expansion that transformed it from the original Wellington Square it was known as when it was first built as Canada's first enclosed mall (and first downtown enclosed mall in North America). The Eaton's Square phase was my favourite incarnation of that mall. It had the big new food court in the basement under that new atrium and a more modern feel than the dated 60's look it had prior. The first year the Galleria opened, it was a lot of wow factor, but it was short lived as the recession of the early 90's wiped out a lot of the retail.

Interestingly, the former Eaton's store, which had it's own address separate from the rest of the mall, is now a 4 story office building called Wellington Square, although you would only know that if you entered the mall by the York St entrance and looked right where the elevators are.

I miss that food court. It actually remained there well into the 90s and you could access Eaton's directly from the food court. There was also a Bi-Way down there, which is where I bought my first Pogs.

When Eaton's scaled down from 5 stories (4 + basement) to 2 stories in 1996, that food court was replaced by a Goodlife, and a new food court was later put in on the second floor, on the "bridge" over King Street facing Clarence. I remember sitting up there watching the demolition of the old London Mews in 1999.

[JustForTheHalibut]

Originally Posted by ue

I think that the main distinction for whether or not a downtown mall is 'successful' is if the downtown of a city was already vibrant or had some pull in some way. That, or it's the only real mall in town (like Saskatoon). Downtown malls were conceived of to 'save' downtown but they really failed at doing that and the only successful ones were in downtowns that were already healthy (Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal).

I'm a bit surprised peninsular or downtown Halifax never built any 'real' malls in it's history. I'm not sure what constitutes a 'real' mall to be honest.

Besides the Halifax Shopping Centre there aren't any real malls in Nova Scotia apparently.


Mayfair isn't exactly near downtown Victoria but it's successful, and like Polo Park in Winnipeg, WoodGrove in Nanaimo although suburban, is the biggest mall on the island.

[WhipperSnapper]

Originally Posted by JHikka

Yorkdale still has some glass ceiling, doesn't it? Not disagreeing.

I haven't been there in forever. Toronto's Eaton Centre had fountains and landscaping everywhere when I was a kid. These spaces did cause traffic flow problems not long after but, there's almost nothing left now.

[ue]

Originally Posted by JustForTheHalibut

I'm a bit surprised peninsular or downtown Halifax never built any 'real' malls in it's history. I'm not sure what constitutes a 'real' mall to be honest.

Besides the Halifax Shopping Centre there aren't any real malls in Nova Scotia apparently.


Mayfair isn't exactly near downtown Victoria but it's successful, and like Polo Park in Winnipeg, WoodGrove in Nanaimo although suburban, is the biggest mall on the island.

Micmac Mall? Also has the only Bay store in the Maritimes.

[someone123]

HSC is #27 for sales per square foot in Canada and the only other mall above it that's not in a significantly larger metro area is Conestoga in Waterloo. It's roughly tied with Polo Park. I think most people would consider it to be on the peninsula.

Mic Mac Mall has The Bay but does not seem as healthy or upscale, though I haven't been there in a long time. Eventually these malls will probably get some residential do-overs like what's happening with the metro Vancouver malls. This has already been proposed for West End Mall and Penhorn.