Portage Place in Winnipeg is in roughly the same position as City Centre. Hamilton’s Jackson Square (last I checked) was maybe about where City Centre was 8-10 years ago — not great but with a decent amount of amenities. Citi Plaza in London is worse off. I haven’t been but I’ve heard Cornwall Centre in Regina is very so-so, but still the healthiest remaining mall in the area.
When I think of successful downtown malls in Canada, I think of Vancouver, Victoria (unless that changed recently), Calgary, Saskatoon, Toronto, Ottawa, and Montreal. Pretty decent collection, especially compared with the States, but hardly like Edmonton is the only one missing out on this phenomenon. However, I will say what makes Edmonton stick out is that it’s the largest city with a dead downtown mall by a long shot.
WEM is definitely part of the picture, but I think Kingsway has had a more understated, but arguably bigger role at keeping Downtown Edmonton retail from thriving. Like, yeah, all the destination retail first popping up in Edmonton or only opening one location is mostly going to WEM, but what about the retailers that do branch out and feature in the region’s three “fortress” malls? Kingsway is too close to the core to make separate locations for destination stores viable in general. Uniqlo is looking at aggressively expanding across North America and just opened its 2nd Edmonton location at Southgate. You really think, if they open another one here, it’s going anywhere but Kingsway? And Kingsway’s proximity to the core will mean that there’s no way Downtown is getting a location. Rinse and repeat for Nike, Simons, Lululemon, Aritzia, Anthropologie, Apple Store, etc. Even a store like Urban Outfitters, known to try and have locations in more, well, urban locations, is far more likely to wind up on Whyte than Jasper or in City Centre.
