Dead Malls of Canada

[eternallyme]

Originally Posted by casper

Saskatoon is an interesting example. Midtown Plaza (the downtown mall) is the largest in the city and plays a role in attracting people downtown. In this case some of the advantages that Midtown Plaza has is it is the premier shopping centre in the city. The only Bay and Sears department stores in the city and the shops in the mall are mostly national/international brands where they only operate one outlet in the city or province. It is basically a destination, that helps compensate for the hassle of parking downtown.

Regina and Saskatoon both seem to have their main malls downtown too...it seems some cities it is a hit, others a huge miss.

[davidivivid]

The St-Roch neighbourhood near downtown was the main shopping destination for Quebekers up until the early 70's. All the great stores were situated there, the most famous being Le Syndicat de Québec, whose building was designed by Chicago architects to resemble the bow of the Empress of Ireland, the ocean liner which sank in the St-Lawrence River in 1914.


http://www.quebecurbain.qc.ca/2011/0...e-quebec-1951/

Unfortunately, several huge shopping malls were built in the suburbs in the late 60's so customers stopped going downtown to shop, situation which created big problems in the St-Roch neighbourhood. In order to lure customers back downtown, City officials had the brilliant (sarcasm!!!!!) idea to transfrom a part of the of the St-Joseph street in an indoor mall by attaching a roof to the buildings on both side of the street!!



The St-Joseph street before:


http://www.banq.qc.ca/histoire_quebe...e.jsp?V=7&C=16

The St-Joseph street after:


http://francisvachon.photoshelter.co...000Oy3kHAfSilM





http://www.quebecurbain.qc.ca/2007/0...-mail-st-roch/


This idea turned out to be a disaster: it was ugly, it disfigured a beautiful street and attracted a lot of homeless people which didn't sit well with propective customers... Fortunately, the last part of the roof of this "mall" was dismantled in 2007. Since then, the City has spend a lot of money to rejuvenate this part of town and it seems to be working. Several hip stores have recently appeared on St-Joseph street: Urban Outfitters, Mango, EQ3, John Fluevog, etc...

[rapid_business]

It's funny how the experiment with downtown malls, or the "malling" of main street retail, has been a short-lived experiment that we are spending significant effort to remedy over the past 15 years. The "de-malling" of malls has been a big push over the past couple of years in first ring suburban malls that want to keep a retail anchor but retrofit it to mainstreet-esque standards (eg. Don Mills).

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by davidivivid

The St-Roch neighbourhood near downtown was the main shopping destination for Quebekers up until the early 70's. All the great stores were situated there, the most famous being Le Syndicat de Québec, whose building was designed by Chicago architects to resemble the bow of the Empress of Ireland, the ocean liner which sank in the St-Lawrence River in 1914.


http://www.quebecurbain.qc.ca/2011/0...e-quebec-1951/

Unfortunately, several huge shopping malls were built in the suburbs in the late 60's so customers stopped going downtown to shop, situation which created big problems in the St-Roch neighbourhood. In order to lure customers back downtown, City officials had the brilliant (sarcasm!!!!!) idea to transfrom a part of the of the St-Joseph street in an indoor mall by attaching a roof to the buildings on both side of the street!!



The St-Joseph street before:


http://www.banq.qc.ca/histoire_quebe...e.jsp?V=7&C=16

The St-Joseph street after:


http://francisvachon.photoshelter.co...000Oy3kHAfSilM





http://www.quebecurbain.qc.ca/2007/0...-mail-st-roch/


This idea turned out to be a disaster: it was ugly, it disfigured a beautiful street and attracted a lot of homeless people which didn't sit well with propective customers... Fortunately, the last part of the roof of this "mall" was dismantled in 2007. Since then, the City has spend a lot of money to rejuvenate this part of town and it seems to be working. Several hip stores have recently appeared on St-Joseph street: Urban Outfitters, Mango, EQ3, John Fluevog, etc...

They did something similar to Ottawa's main shopping street, Rideau St., in the 1980s. They enclosed all of the sidewalks in glass, and heated the thing in the winter. The idea being that what attracted people to malls was the climate controlled environment, so they tried to bring that climate control to a traditional city street.

They also made the street itself into a transit mall reserved only for buses (and taxis too I think). So basically what resulted was a haven for vagrants that reeked of urine and pot most of the time, and the outside of the glass windows in the winter was covered in brown and black slush from the bus traffic. And motorists no longer had access (physical or even visual) to the businesses on Rideau. (Even for bus passengers they were hard to see.)

It was just horrible, and the street in my opinion has never fully recovered from this tragic mistake, even though the enclosures were taken down maybe 20 years ago or so.

http://urbsite.blogspot.ca/2011/05/r...-then-now.html

[SpongeG]

salt lake city just opened a large downtown mall - so far is quite the success

• Video Link

[The_Architect]

The dead mall in Oakville would definitely be Bronte Village Mall at Bronte and Lakeshore.. It's become a discount mall with a lot of vacant sections. As the area gets built up more though (The Shores is one huge condo by Oakville standards under construction by the harbour) it will become a more upscale place, and there already are plans to remodel it.

Hopedale Mall is another one that isn't exactly a huge destination, but it serves a large area of people and wouldn't be considered "dead" by any means.

[MolsonExport]

^been there. the Bronte village mall is an anomaly in an otherwise mainly wealthy section of Oakville. I heard that it was slated for demolition and redevelopment.

[Hali87]

Rear view of South Centre Mall, Halifax

[MolsonExport]

Typical tenants of dying malls:

Ethnic/non-chain dollar store(s)
Ardene
Bentley
Senior's Life Centre
Church/place of worship (you know the mall is in trouble when these roll in)
Doctor's/Dental/specialist clinic
Diploma mills
Magiccuts
No Frills
SAAN/Field's
H&R Block
Liquidation World
Bob's Ultimate Meats
Goodlife fitness
Public library

[Hali87]

Originally Posted by someone123

The downtown malls are often a double-edged sword. In the worst case even if they are successful they don't really contribute much to the surrounding area and, when they have lots of parking, they are no better than a suburban mall. They may actually be worse if they take up lots of prime land.

In Halifax I can think of six downtown malls (Scotia Square, Barrington Place, Maritime Mall, City Centre Atlantic, Park Lane, Spring Garden Place). Scotia Square is one of the first modern downtown malls in Canada and is a giant bunker that is poorly connected to the streets nearby and marginal as a retail destination. The more successful malls are smaller, are located in the middle of busy retail areas, and have normal storefront-style entrances. They've also got residential buildings on top instead of office towers, and are in areas with a higher population density.

Don't forget Privateer's Wharf!
Or the Shops of Granville Mall

When I think of downtown malls in Halifax I think of Scotia Square and Park Lane. The rest are not really anywhere near the same scale and are basically just a handful of shops sharing a common hallway, and if anything I'd lump Barrington Place and Granville Mall in with Scotia Square and CCA and Spring Garden Place in with Park Lane. I find it hard to think of the basement of the Aliant building as a mall, and if it is, then Purdy's Landing should be included as well.

I guess I think of malls as being commercial zones like HSC or MicMac (or the Eaton or Rideau Centres)... not so much the tiny collections of specialty shops and convenience stores that bill themselves as "malls". I say this because I honestly feel that if it were made a priority, Scotia Square could likely fill the same kind of niche as the Eaton Centre for example - it is a major transit hub, is firmly within the downtown core and there is no real reason why it couldn't have higher-end stores or be open for longer hours. Park Lane fills a different niche, being a bit smaller but more high-end as well as having the cinemas. The others you mentioned I really just consider to be little clusters of shops within the larger Spring Garden and Barrington commercial districts.

[vid]

What is it with Bentley and locating in shitty malls?

"Gee, we don't want to sell stylish backpacks in places where people are shopping for clothes and fashion accessories! Let's go to the dead mall on the edge of town! That spot between the public library and the herpes clinic is a great location!"

[niwell]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

^been there. the Bronte village mall is an anamoly in an otherwise mainly wealthy section of Oakville. I heard that it was slated for demolition and redevelopment.

There is a proposal for redevelopment, however there is a huge amount of neighbourhood opposition and nothing is likely to happen soon. Although it is inevitable. Not surprising as it is Oakville... A revamp of the mall itself may be more likely

I visited the mall for work when I was with Halton Region and heard from the super there that the anchor businesses had recently signed 5 year leases. Also that virtually no money was being put towards maintenance and the roof leaked. This was summer of 2009 and the mall was approximately 60% vacant at the time.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by Hali87

I guess I think of malls as being commercial zones like HSC or MicMac (or the Eaton or Rideau Centres)... not so much the tiny collections of specialty shops and convenience stores that bill themselves as "malls". I say this because I honestly feel that if it were made a priority, Scotia Square could likely fill the same kind of niche as the Eaton Centre for example - it is a major transit hub, is firmly within the downtown core and there is no real reason why it couldn't have higher-end stores or be open for longer hours. Park Lane fills a different niche, being a bit smaller but more high-end as well as having the cinemas. The others you mentioned I really just consider to be little clusters of shops within the larger Spring Garden and Barrington commercial districts.

I think there is a distinction to be made between street-facing retail and retail with an interior storefront, even if there aren't many stores. It is can be hard to get the interior storefronts to work, and in some cases the small places can be even harder because it's hard to turn them into destinations. For the larger downtown malls their success seems almost binary -- some become high-end destinations and others attract low-end tenants or are vacant.

Scotia Square has a lot of problems. It's a transit hub, yes, for buses that nobody with money wants to ride. The Eaton Centre has two subway stations. The Eaton Centre and Yonge Street are also a busy pedestrian corridor whereas there is nothing north of Scotia Square for pedestrians to walk to. On top of all this, Scotia Square is poorly integrated with Barrington and the mall entrance looks like an office tower lobby. As far as I know there are no ads for stores on the outside of the building. For years the Barrington facade was a blank concrete wall. Now it's dressed up with some bland and completely nonfunctional plastic panels. The whole thing is a mess as a retail destination, though it is successful as an office complex.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by davidivivid

This idea turned out to be a disaster: it was ugly, it disfigured a beautiful street and attracted a lot of homeless people which didn't sit well with propective customers... Fortunately, the last part of the roof of this "mall" was dismantled in 2007. Since then, the City has spend a lot of money to rejuvenate this part of town and it seems to be working. Several hip stores have recently appeared on St-Joseph street: Urban Outfitters, Mango, EQ3, John Fluevog, etc...

Funny. I remember going there in the late-90's but forgot where that place actually was.

The sad thing is that you still have city councillors in some places presenting half-baked ideas like this. There are also a lot of people who still seem to think that closing streets to cars can turn stagnating areas into retail destinations.

Cargo cult planning.


source

[vid]

Thunder Bay's downtown mall has become so successful at attracting offices (since we have a shortage of office space in the city) that a group of tenants wants to rename it "Fort William Business Centre". The city used to have most of the offices and periodically referred to it as Victoriaville Civic Centre. If Victoriaville, Quebec was an Anglophone city, that kind of think would probably fuck up their Google search results.

At this point, I would guess that around 500 people work in the facility. The 3-level parkade attached to it is almost entirely leased out to office workers.

The downside is, it doesn't offer much to anyone other than residents of the downtown area and those office workers, while cutting off what would potentially be a main street in the city.

[armorand93]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

Typical tenants of dying malls:

Ethnic/non-chain dollar store(s)
Ardene
Bentley
Senior's Life Centre
Church/place of worship (you know the mall is in trouble when these roll in)
Doctor's/Dental/specialist clinic
Diploma mills
Magiccuts
No Frills
SAAN/Field's
H&R Block
Liquidation World
Bob's Ultimate Meats
Goodlife fitness
Public library

Malls I can think of with this:

Portage Place (Winnipeg)
CityPlace (Winnipeg)
COURTS OF ST JAMES (Winnipeg)
Home Oil Mall? (Calgary, has a McDonalds)
Lions Park Mall, or is it North-Hill? (Calgary, by Lions Park LRT)
Chinatown Mall for sure (Calgary)

[dmuzika]

Originally Posted by armorand93

Malls I can think of with this:

Home Oil Mall? (Calgary, has a McDonalds)
Lions Park Mall, or is it North-Hill? (Calgary, by Lions Park LRT)
Chinatown Mall for sure (Calgary)

Never heard of the "Home Oil Mall" and I live in Calgary, do you remember where it is?

The other one is the North Hill Mall (16 Ave & 14 St NW) - it's a small mall with limited selection, but it's not really dieing/dead.

Some of the dieing malls that fit that category are Deerfoot Mall and Beddington Mall.

Typical tenants of dying malls:

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

Ethnic/non-chain dollar store(s)
Ardene
Bentley
Senior's Life Centre
Church/place of worship (you know the mall is in trouble when these roll in)
Doctor's/Dental/specialist clinic
Diploma mills
Magiccuts
No Frills
SAAN/Field's
H&R Block
Liquidation World
Bob's Ultimate Meats
Goodlife fitness
Public library

Don't forget the greasy spoon ethnic restaurant and the shady/independent jeweler. When the Payless Shoes moves out, you know mall is really on the down turn.

[armorand93]

Originally Posted by dmuzika

Never heard of the "Home Oil Mall" and I live in Calgary, do you remember where it is? (1)

The other one is the North Hill Mall (16 Ave & 14 St NW) - it's a small mall with limited selection, but it's not really dieing/dead. (2)

Some of the dieing malls that fit that category are Deerfoot Mall and Beddington Mall. (3)

Typical tenants of dying malls:


Don't forget the greasy spoon ethnic restaurant and the shady/independent jeweler. When the Payless Shoes moves out, you know mall is really on the down turn. (4)

(1) - Home Oil Tower!



(2) - Agreed, but some days, it seems like a ghost-town

(3) - Seen Deerfoot (shitmall), never heard of Beddingford though

(4) - LOL theres this mall in Winnipeg called court of st. james, its the DEFINITION OF DEAD!!! The only (successful) tenants are Sobeys (formerly the Courts IGA) and probably the bar at the other end of the complex. Otherwise, the Sals House (eatery) is empty as hell, Hallmark is empty, 50% of the building is pure dentist/doctor offices, Sangsters supplements store looks like nobody even visited it recently, and BOM (bank of montreal) left a long time ago. Also, the guy with no arms and no legs loitering around with his group kind of disturbed me...

[miketoronto]

Originally Posted by davidivivid

The St-Roch neighbourhood near downtown was the main shopping destination for Quebekers up until the early 70's. All the great stores were situated there, the most famous being Le Syndicat de Québec, whose building was designed by Chicago architects to resemble the bow of the Empress of Ireland, the ocean liner which sank in the St-Lawrence River in 1914.

Le Syndicat de Québec looks like one amazing building. Is that building still standing and in use as something now?

Wow it is just amazing how we have killed off so much of our cities, even here in Canada.
I guess St. Foy is just too popular for Quebec City residents.

[davidivivid]

double post