Heritage Mall

Edmonton Alberta, Opened August 3 1981, Demolished sometime in 2006.

Heritage Mall opened during a huge mall boom in Edmonton, the first phase of West Edmonton Mall opened the following September, with 225 stores.

Heritage opened with 155 stores at around 960 000 sf,It included four majors, Eatons at 160,000 sf, Sears 155,000 sf, Woolco 120,000 sf and Safeway at 45,000 sf,the mall was two levels with triangular vaulted cedar ceilings running the length of the malls. The flooring was a light brown quarry tile palnters and benches were done in a brass finish.

The centre court featured a three story "waterfall" in 2 sections with the water flowing down "threads" into a large pool that curved around the underside of the escalators, mature Palm and Fig trees provided interior landscaping throughout the centre.

Opening day over 120,000 people visited the centre out of a metropolitan population of the time of around 650.000 the centre prospered up until around 1994, When WAL MART entered the Canadian market by purchasing the Canadian Woolco stores. over time Wal Mart closed it's conventional mall stores (including Heritage) and opened free standing supercentres.

After Wal Mart vacated Heritage the decline began. due to retail changes in the Canadian market anchors began to leave the mall. Eatons left in 1993 after Woodwards declared bankruptcy and was merged into the Hudson's Bay Company, Both Woodwards and The Bay were located in nearby Southgate Centre which was and still the dominant mall in the southside of Edmonton. Eatons took over the much larger Woodwards space, leaving the smaller Heritage location a clearance store, this lasted around 2 years.

With 2 of four anchors gone the centre began losing smaller stores (during the mid 80's Southgate also doubled in size to 125 stores creating a large amount of duplication) So the less profitable branches closed in Heritage being replaced by independent local mom and pop type shops.

More changes were on the way as Eatons went bankrupt in 1999 with Sears Canada picking up the pieces, So Sears moved to the former Eatons space at Southgate leaving only Safeway remaining at Heritage. For several years Heritage remained standing and dark with only the Safeway open for business, Sears efven left the signs up on the Heritage location for a few years which was very unusual.

The final death knell sounded when Safeway rebuilt a free standing branch on the perimeter of the site and mall was finally demolished sometime around 2006. The site has been renamed Century Park and has seen redevelopment in the form of a much smaller retail footprint and several hundred condominiums. Ttal units when complete will be around 2000 homes. A Light Rail Link to Downtown Edmonton opened April 25, 2010.

The mall was developed by the DAON corporation and has a twin located in Coquitlam in Vancouver it still stands and will give you a idea of what Heritage Mall once looked like. It is called Coquitlam Centre. DAON also built another mall in the same style in Red Deer Alberta that opened in the same year, all the projects where finished in the same exterior style with red brick predominating.

Darrell in Edmonton