[ssiguy]

A lot of you people are far too young to remember why Westmount expanded so much in the first place and frankly it did seem logical.

Westmount was just a tiny collection of stores until 1973 when it added 50 stores and became the largest mall in SWO. It became THE mall in London and business soared after 1977 because that's when the Guy Lombardo Bridge was built. Before that to get from north of the Thames to Westmount required going either all the way thru Byron or going all the way down Wharncliffe. Neither of those options were very appealing. The 402 was also starting to open in segments and was completed by the early 80s and Westmount was the easiest mall to be access from those Middlesex and Lambton regional shoppers.After the GLB was built literally tens of thousands of new potential customers were within a few minute drive and with the 402 regional shoppers were also new customers. Even Eaton's saw the potential as it replaced the old Horizon dept store, that's right Eaton's was not built there initially.

Westmount itself was also one of the fastest growing areas of the city and the demographics were young families which is exactly what Westmount wanted and London's economy was booming in the late 80s and it's population was also.. Masonville didn't open until 1983 and it wasn't near as big as it is now so the huge Westmount expansion in the late 80s made sense. I think a lot of you seem to think Westmount expanded just to follow a craze of mall building in the 80s which certainly didn't help but Westmount's expansion did have some very solid economics to back it up.