Feature Article
WESTMOUNT MALL AT 50
Written By: Lawrence Herzog
Published By: Real Estate Weekly
Article © Copyright Lawrence Herzog
2005-09-01
; "Westmount Mall at 50")
When Westmount Shoppers' Park opened in August 1955, it was Edmonton"s first shopping mall and it created quite a stir in the growing city. With Woodwards', Johnstone Walker and Kresge"s as anchor tenants, more than 40 other merchants and 3,000 free parking stalls, it was unlike anything Edmonton had ever seen.
At the busy intersection of Groat Road and 111th Avenue, in the heart of the city"s rapidly growing northwest, the new development had location on its side. Driven by the oil fields that had been discovered under its toes, Edmonton was in the midst of its fastest boom of the 20th century.
By the end of 1966, Edmonton"s total area had increased to 85.59 square miles, more than double its size when oil was discovered near Leduc in 1947. Between 1947 and 1956, the city"s population doubled from 113,000 to 226,000 and the surging wages delivered by all the petroleum sector jobs meant its thousands of new residents had money to spend.
Young families needed new appliances - washers, driers, electric refrigerators, gas stoves and furniture. Land was plentiful and cheap and Westmount was the right idea at the right time. Huge newspaper ads proclaimed the new shopping complex as another first in Edmonton"s phenomenal march of progress.
Here"s where you can streamline your shopping and make one stop do the work of many, one ad said. Here in Shoppers' Park, concentrated in one great shopping centre, you'll find everything to meet your day-to-day needs at money-saving prices. Avoid traffic congestion, eliminate parking problems. There"s always plenty of free parking space right on the premises.
History tells us that Westmount was also significant for another reason. It proved to be the first step in making Edmonton mall city.
With an abundance of cheap land, there was lots of room to sprawl indulgently. With all that petroleum, fuel was cheap and driving to malls in automobiles quickly became the preferred way of shopping.
Malls were soon springing up all over the city. Bonnie Doon in 1958, Northgate in 1963, Capilano, Meadowlark, Southgate in 1967 and, in the mid-1970s, Kingsway. They laid the groundwork for the giant of them all - West Edmonton Mall, which opened its Phase 1 in 1981.
Malls changed the course of urban planning in Edmonton. While most other Canadian cities were building neighbourhoods around urban retail clusters, the way Old Strathcona and 124th Street developed, Edmonton shifted to a model that emphasized shopping in climate-controlled malls.
Just as West Edmonton Mall opened in 1981, Westmount ironically fell on hard times. Its primary anchor tenant, Woodwards', closed its doors and, as shopping patterns changed, the mall became a sea of empty storefronts. It went through a half dozen owners, including Triple Five, owners of West Edmonton Mall.
It wasn't until a rejuvenation that began in 1999 that Westmount again found its place as a fun, exciting place of community gathering. The $30 million project added 17 distinct elements to the mall and has as its centrepiece Westmount Centre Ice, a regulation size rink, and a 540-seat Food Court, adjacent to the ice.
Today, Westmount sits rather humbly in the shadows of the city"s bigger, newer malls in a city that remains one of the most malled in North America. The Edmonton Transit bus terminal and Ross Sheppard High School, on the western side of the centre, are both significant sources of pedestrian traffic and the re-design gives that side of the complex a more welcoming face and encourages more efficient foot traffic flow.
Fifty years after Westmount began Edmonton"s mall revolution, the formula has evolved to include so-called power centres - such as the mammoth, car centered South Edmonton Common. But as property values and fuel prices continue to climb, with some analysts predicting $1.30 a litre prices next year, and obesity an epidemic in our children, the days of the power centres may be coming to an end.
City dwellers are increasingly seeking walkable amenities and the urban village concept is finding its way into North American cities. The role of the shopping centre may well change with it, with a move to more pedestrian, transit and bicycle friendly malls. Even in the car-crazy United States, one of the big trends is lifestyle villages, were people live close to where they shop.
In Edmonton, this new way of thinking - this new urbanism - is evident in the success of Old Strathcona and the increasing density around Oliver Square, on the former Canadian National railyards north of 104th Avenue and west of 109th Street. True to its pioneering reputation, Westmount is already positioned to answer the demands of shifting demographics and shopping patterns with its rejuvenation as a community gathering place.
If you'd like to offer your thoughts, please drop me an email at lawrenceherzog@hotmail.com.
