That first picture was kind of a lie -- it's actually the very last picture I took, on the complete opposite side of the mall. Though I doubt anyone would have noticed if I hadn't said anything! 🙂 By US standards, Tsawwassen Mills is a somewhat non-traditional mall, with no department store anchors -- the largest tenant is Bass Pro Shops, which is about the same size as a typical mall anchor, but the rest of the mall is instead ringed by what would normally be considered "junior anchors". This situation seems pretty common among Vancouver-area malls, though most of them do have the Hudson's Bay department store, at least.
Interesting, a new indoor mall built as late as 2016! I'm not sure about the histories of the Canadian malls I've been to, but with US malls at least, the newest indoor mall I've been to is The Mall at Robinson in the Pittsburgh area, but that opened in 2001. Anyway, I certainly hope this mall is more interesting than Katy Mills in Houston, a very late 1990s semi-outlet Mills mall anchored by Bass Pro Shops which I have found to be rather mediocre as a mall.
ReplyDeleteSome of the downtown underground malls in Montreal I went to could probably be described as being anchored by junior anchors at best. Due to the nature of the underground malls and tunnels, some of the malls kind of ran together and so it's quite hard to some extent to know that you've left one mall and entered another so the concept of anchors there gets kind of blurred. I don't know what the current state of the downtown Montreal malls are as I went in 2017, but if it hasn't changed much, it is most certainly worth a visit. Montreal is worth a visit even outside of retail, of course.
I definitely found this to be quite an interesting mall, so I hope you will too!
DeleteThere are a lot of places in Canada that I'd love to visit some day! I've been there a lot, but really only to Vancouver and Vancouver Island (which are separate places... that often trips up tourists). Toronto is probably top of the list, but Montreal seems like a cool place too!
I think US malls could have a brighter future if they were set-up and anchored more like their Canadian counterparts. Having more power-center type stores and a more diverse range of anchors (discount stores, grocery stores, etc.) rather than relying solely on department stores is a big plus these days, and I think with US malls skewing toward department stores and clothing/shoe type stores over the last 20-30 years hasn't helped. That's a part of retail that's really begun to struggle lately, with malls relying on those types of stores being brought down by a struggling sector of retail.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I'm sure it would help... it's too bad that it seems too late to make big changes like that anymore. Interestingly, despite their non-traditional nature, grocery stores were pretty uncommon in the malls I visited (unless you count Walmart Supercentres).
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