Thanks for posting that video! I remember seeing the building alot as a kid but don't think I ever made it to a movie there, that theatre looked huge would have been a fun experience.
Since this seems to have turned into our annually re-occuring Calgary nostalgia thread:
Southcentre 1974 (looks the same as today!)
A Woolco at a Calgary mall somewhere in 1975? Westbrook?
Woolco could have been the old Macleod Mall too.
Hard to believe that the Met and Kresge were considered anchor stores. I guess because they were there since the beginning, but they were larger Saan stores that smelled like the plastic shoes they sold. The Met had a lunch counter too. Even as a kid in the 80s, it was hard to understand why there would be a junk store next to a cool store like a toy store or a place like Birks.
The Sears was massive originally...in the pre Reno, there was escalators from the mall down into the main level of Sears.
The Sears was massive originally...in the pre Reno, there was escalators from the mall down into the main level of Sears.
I've often wondered how many people accidentally shoplifted from the Sears there by getting on the escalator on the first floor with a bunch of unpaid items then finding themselves stepping off the escalator in the middle of the mall on the second floor?
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I've often wondered how many people accidentally shoplifted from the Sears there by getting on the escalator on the first floor with a bunch of unpaid items then finding themselves stepping off the escalator in the middle of the mall on the second floor?
Yeah who knows, I assume that upper floor originally was also part of the Sears, and judging by the massive picture when it opened, I assume it did.
The Woodward’s food floor was interesting too, at the very south end of the mall long before the theatres.
Oh yeah, I forgot how they ruined the Devonian Gardens and turned it into the highly disappointing tile heavy uninspired boring wasteland that it is today.
Given its location, it indeed is a disappointment.
Kind of like Eau Claire Market. Last weekend, I stepped foot in there for the first time in likely half a decade. I can't recall, but was it popular when it first opened its doors in the early 1990s? Even the food court options are lacking, so foot traffic for the weekday lunch hours doesn't seem like it would be great. The busiest store was an electronic bike store.
The redevelopment of ECM was supposed to break ground in both 2008 and 2016, but the recessions pumped the brakes on any significant work.
The area outside is always bustling, combined with the new condos, along with a number of hotels in the area, the pathways and river are busy...
And doing some reading online, they didn't want a +15 because it seemed outdated at the time. The market itself is just so disconnected; I'd be curious to know the vacancy rate.
Eau Claire was popular when it first opened as a novelty but it was widely known no one actually bought anything there. So over time retailers vanished and then things like the imax and cinescape that attracted some traffic followed
Now it is probably at least half non retailer leasers
It’s a sad state
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That partnership was only officially announced about two weeks ago, so it will probably still be a while. They said they want their first Canadian locations to start opening in 2019. That probably means Calgary will get one in 2020 or so.
Weird...I thought I read about the partnership well over a year ago, but I suppose it may not have been 'official'
H and M and Old Navy are putting stores in Southcentre now.
Should revitalize it a bit I think.
Where is the Old Navy going?
It didn't take long for the Show Home Furniture place to move into the old Sears. I don't know how many locations they have, but I think it's just the same store moving all the time.
