Loving Calgary: Shopping

Our malls are getting makeovers and going downtown, too

Alberta’s retail sales saw the sharpest decline across the country in 2009, but things might finally be turning around. The shopping mall, a longtime suburban phenomenon, is undergoing a retail renaissance in Calgary’s inner city.

Taking over the old Sears building last October, the marble, glass and steel-clad Holt Renfrew is now three luxurious floors of high-end brand-name fashion, ranging from Jil Sander and Gucci to Thomas Pink for men and Hermès.    

For a mix of indie, international and local designers, Fashion Central’s 25 designer brand boutiques include New York’s Betsey Johnson, the cosmetic emporium Murale, local designer Lara Presber and Carmen Steffens, a Brazilian leather goods store.   

Come November 2010, downtown shoppers will also be privy to the sight of the world’s largest skylight of its kind, which will cross three city blocks. The skylight is part of the massive updating of The Core shopping centre (a.k.a. Calgary Eaton Centre, TD Square and Scotia Centre), which will also include a renovated Devonian Gardens, an expanded food court and new outlets including the classic American clothier Brooks Brothers, an expanded Harry Rosen, Swarovski Crystal and H&M Trend.     

Farther south, Chinook Centre’s $275-million expansion wraps up in October and brings 80 new stores, including Anne Klein, Kiehl’s, Parasuco and Marciano to the 50-year-old shopping centre.

And with all these new stores and pedestrian-friendly hubs close to public transit, hopefully we can finally say goodbye to jumping in a car the next time we want to indulge in retail therapy.

We have a new outlet mall just in time for the recession

While we are being reassured by the economic know-it-alls that things are on the up and up, saving money is likely to be in vogue for a few years to come. Fortunately, for those Calgarians looking for a deal, they can now do so in style at CrossIron Mills in Balzac, or “Mallzac” as it is fondly known to so many.

With 17 large-scale anchor stores, including the gotta-see-it-to-believe-it Bass Pro Shops, more than 20 stores that are new to Alberta, including the first Gap Generation store in Canada and more than 200 shops and restaurants (with more slated to open this summer), CrossIron Mills is the first new enclosed shopping mall to be built in Alberta in two decades.

To help shoppers deal with its massive scale — CrossIron Mills has more than 1.4 million square feet of building area — developers divided the mall into six “neighbourhoods” and several “courts,” which each take their design cues from different aspects of Alberta’s heritage and geography. The Ranch Neighbourhood runs from the Campfire Court to the Rodeo Court and incorporates some of the more stereotypical iconography of life in the West, but the imagery of the Resources Neighbourhood and the Fossil Neighbourhood offer something more interesting, making the shopping experience a bit more thought-provoking.

The number of small retailers is growing

A thriving shop culture, where small independent merchants own and operate street-front stores, is one of those unscientific markers of a city that attracts repeat visitors. Neighbourhoods full of shops and cafes also create a walkable city. While we’re not quite at walkable city status yet, the growing number of shops along 4th Street S.W., 8th Avenue S. and 17th Avenue S.W., as well as those in Inglewood, Kensington and Marda Loop, have had the effect of making both our pocketbooks and our hearts lighter. And the near-overnight transformation of 1st Street S.W. from sketchy dive-bar haven to fashion heaven has been, well, transformative.