With a population of 3 million people, it’s no wonder that the city of Montreal is home to several major shopping malls. While it’s always nice to browse the boutiques along St. Laurent or St. Denis, sometimes you want to just spend a few hours inside a mall that has hundreds of stores to choose from. Not surprisingly, Montreal is the site of the first mall every built in Canada. The Norgate shopping center was constructed in 1949 in Saint-Laurent, and it is still around today. The L-shaped building continues to house clients such as the Royal Bank, Provigo and Pharmaprix, among others. Needless to say, mall design has come a long way in the last 60 years, and Montreal’s modern malls are veritable behemoths of commerce.
Downtown malls
The downtown area of Montreal is home to three shopping malls. The largest of these is the Eaton Center on the corner of McGill and St. Catherines streets, which plays host to 175 stores and 32 restaurants in a space of 290 000 square feet. The mall used to be dominated by a huge Eaton’s department store, but with the economic collapse of the Eaton’s chain in the early part of this decade, the Eaton’s section has been converted into a large Ailes de la Mode store. The Eaton Center is linked to the underground city as well as to the McGill Metro stop. The top floor of the mall houses a movie theatre.
Just a few short blocks to the west on St. Catherines you can find Les Cours Mont-Royal, which is a fashion-oriented mall housed in the older Mount Royal Hotel building. While not particularly large, this mall is known for its fashion shows in the common areas, and has a food court and many different clothing boutiques. The mall is directly connected to the underground city as well, and is adjacent to the Paramount movie theatre complex.
At the western tip of downtown, across the street from the Montreal Forum is Place Alexis Nihon, which houses a multi-level mall in addition to its office towers and living space. The mall does not connect with the underground city but does have a tunnel directly to the Atwater metro station. This mall is dominated by a large Canadian Tire store as well as a supermarket and a Zellers.
Suburban malls
As with most cities, the largest malls are located at the periphery of the urban areas, where land is cheap and huge parking lots more feasible. The three malls worth mentioning are the Carrefour Angrignon in Lasalle, the Galeries d’Anjou, and the Fairview Pointe-Claire mall. Of the three, Fairview is by far the largest, with 200 stores housed in a 1 million square foot building. In addition to many large box-type stores, Fairview is home to Old Navy, H & M as well as The Bay. The Carrefour Angrignon, located at the end of the metro’s Green Line has recently undergone significant expansion with the development of the terrain directly opposite the mall. Angrignon also has a movie theatre and in the summers a small go-kart track in the parking lot.
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