Metrotown

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is about the Metrotown mall. For the SkyTrain station adjacent to the mall, see Metrotown Station.

Mall facts and statistics
Metropolis at Metrotown
Metropolis at Metrotown's entrance facing Central Boulevard and the SkyTrain station.

Location	Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada
Opening date	1986
Developer	Ivanhoe Cambridge / Cal Investments
Management	Ivanhoe Cambridge
Owner	Ivanhoe Cambridge
No. of stores and services	470
No. of anchor tenants	13
Total retail floor area	1,783,005 sq. ft.
Parking	8,500
No. of floors	3
Website	[1]

Metropolis at Metrotown (formerly known as Metrotown Centre, Eaton Centre Metrotown or Metro as an abbreviation) is a shopping mall complex in Burnaby, British Columbia. It is the largest mall in British Columbia, and the second largest in Canada, with over 470 shops and services. Its anchor stores are The Bay, Sears, Zellers, Real Canadian Superstore, Famous Players Silvercity movie theatre, Chapters, Sport Chek, Coast Mountain Sports, Winners/HomeSense and Toys "R" Us. The mall is connected by a skyway to the Metrotown Station on the Skytrain system.

The mall has undergone many expansions since its opening in 1986, and has contributed to the rapid growth of the area's population. Two additional shopping centres were constructed adjacent to the original Metrotown -- Eaton Centre and Station Square. These three different malls were connected by skyways, as were the two office towers known as the Metrotowers. In 1998, Metrotown added Metropolis, a collection of stores aimed towards younger shoppers, including Silvercity, Claire's, and CHQ (replacing the Playdium, which has since shut down), as well as several Asian-themed businesses. For teens there is Icing, Old Navy, HMV. The name Metropolis came to apply to Eaton Centre once its main tenant, Eaton's, shut down. In 2005, a major expansion project ended that saw Metrotown and Metropolis combined into one single megamall, as well as the addition of many new stores and Western Canada's largest food court. Following this expansion, the two malls became one entity under the name "Metropolis at Metrotown". Station Square has remained separate (though still connected to Metrotown via a skyway) and another shopping centre, the Asian-themed Crystal Mall, opened near Metropolis several years ago though it has no direct connection to Metropolis.

Metropolis at Metrotown as seen from the SkyTrain.

The word "Metrotown" has now come to apply to the part of Burnaby that surrounds the mall (previously loosely called West Burnaby), particularly commercial and high-rise residential areas for several kilometres east and west along Kingsway, reflecting the intensification planned for the area when the SkyTrain was constructed in the mid-1980s. Some businesses across the nearby western municipal border, in the City of Vancouver's Collingwood neighbourhood, use the Metrotown name, even though most residents would consider them outside the region covered by the term.