Poor Mall!

Central City is a beautifully designed mall with all the right shops such as T&T, Future Shop and of course a long parade of clothing store to keep you fully entertained. Its spacious, has tons of parking and there is a skytrain station right at the doorstep. Its also the sleepiest mall with very few shoppers even during the weekend peaks. I am currently sitting at this mall wondering why is it that it is unable to attract any shoppers.

It then occurred to me why this might be the case. Central City is no where near a highway exit. Although it is right next to a major road (King George Highway), only local consumers would come here. There is no regional appeal to the mall because not many people know its here, its a bit out of the way from Highway #1.

What about the skytrain? Metrotown is a huge mall in Burnaby sitting right next to a skytrain station. It is probably one of the busiest mall in the GVRD, granted it also has more than 100 stores. One reason that mall attracts a lot of shoppers is because its located between Vancouver and Surrey. Thus, anyone who is commuting on the skytrain to Vancouver, probably passes through Metrotown. Location plays a key role here. You need to make a specific trip out to Surrey to get to Central City and not many people are willing to that. Unfortunately, this area of Surrey has a bad reputation as being a bit shady so this might play a factor as well.

Alas, this poor mall remains a sad, sleepy mall. It seems that if the mall is not right next to a highway or if its not centrally located, then its not going to be attracting a lot of visitors.