Westfield Carindale
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Westfield Carindale was until late 2006 Brisbane's largest shopping centre, and is located in the suburb of Carindale, south of Brisbane. The renovated and extended Westfield Chermside on the north side over took the title of largest shopping centre in Brisbane. It is owned and operated by Westfield. The centre contains a three level Myer department store and a 2 level David Jones department store as well as Big W and Target discount department stores. The centre also contains Woolworths, Action and Aldi supermarkets and a twelve cinema Birch Carroll & Coyle cinema complex. JB Hi-Fi, Rebel Sport, Best and Less and Crazy Clarks also have stores operating here. The centre contains approximately 384 specialty stores and over 5,000 car parking spaces. Management of the centre was handed over to the Westfield Group (from Suncorp) in 1999 [1] Other features include a large recently renovated food court, Brisbane City Council Library, a town square, Carindale Hotel and a homemakers centre across the road that has shops including Harvey Norman and Dick Smith Electronics.
To residents of Brisbane, it is fairly famous for its carpeted floors and sky lights. However after the 1999 renovation, part of this carpetting and skylights were removed due to maintenance and economical issues.
Carindale Interchange is a major transport hub for the area, providing access to three major universities, the Redland Shire and the Brisbane CBD. A future Eastern Busway will provide extra and more efficient public transport.
The centre is unusual in Australia for the effect of its Myer franchise. Myer's corporate tradition has generally been to close franchises not located in shopping centres after gaining a position in a shopping centre in the same catchment area. In the case of the Carindale store, the nearby franchise at the corner of Old Cleveland Road and Cavendish Road, Coorparoo did not close. This is generally considered to be a mark of the success of the existing store.
Ultimately, however, the separate store was re-badged as part of the Megamart experiment and sold to Harvey Norman at the same time as the other Megamart stores.