| Location | Ottawa, Ontario |
|---|---|
| Opening date | 1956[1] |
| Owner | 20 Vic Management Inc. |
| No. of stores and services | 120 |
| No. of anchor tenants | 2 (Loblaws & Sears) |
| Total retail floor area | 525,934 sq ft/48,860.9 m2 |
| Parking | Over 2,500 parking spaces[2] |
| No. of floors | 1 (with some low-level space, and a small 2nd floor) |
| Website | www.carlingwood.com |
Carlingwood Mall (or also called Carlingwood Shopping Centre) is a major mall located in the west end of the city of Ottawa, Ontario. It is operated by 20 Vic Management Incorporated. The mall opened in 1956[1] and was one of the city's first major shopping centres.
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Simpsons-Sears department store was opened in 1955. It was then a two-floor department store with 160,400 square feet (14,900 m2) of retail space.[3][4].
Carlingwood opened in 1957 and offered 40 stores and was at the time the largest shopping centres in Ottawa. One of the selling points of the mall was its extensive 24 acres (97,000 m2) of free parking. Besides, Sears, one of the early stores to move into the mall was the established shoe store Armstrong & Richardson. Fairweather's, the clothing chain was also one of the earliest tenants and like Armstrong & Richardson is still in operation in Carlingwood.[5][6]
In 2002 the management of the mall was criticised by CUPE, a labour union, for locking out cleaning staff who were part of the union in favour of non-union staff who received minimum wage and no benefits.[7] The CUPE boycott of the mall ended with a victory for the union.[8] Bill Murnighan, a writer for Our Times, used the dispute as an example of the "crossroads" that union organising faced in Canada at the beginning of the millennium.[9]
Although the strike was directed at the shopping centre in the interest of gaining more publicity and having more impact, the cleaning staff were actually not employees of the shopping centre. The cleaning of the shopping centre is contracted out, and the cleaning staff were actually striking against the shopping centre to put pressure on their employer, Allans Maintenance.
Until July 2005 the Alex Dayton Seniors Activity Centre, co-founded by Ottawa Mayor Bob Chiarelli[10], was located near entrance three in the east side of the mall. For the 2007 Ontario election, the space was used as the office for provincial politician Jim Watson's re-election campaign.[11]
The mall was renovated in the mid 2000's to add seating and other "comfort" improvements. In an interview with Ottawa Business Journal, former General Manager Denis Pelletier named the renovation as one of the reasons for the mall's successful 2005 Christmas shopping season, along with the mall's new bargain store, the Sears anchor, and easy customer access.[12]
The mall is situated at the corner of Carling and Woodroffe avenues, about 1 kilometre north of the Queensway (Highway 417). Transit service is provided by OC Transpo's routes 16, 85, 87, 151, 156, 159 & 174. There is also a special Friday trip of route 186 that links North Gower to Carlingwood via Manotick and Barrhaven. It is also situated just a five-minute ride from Lincoln Fields Transit Station where Carlingwood clients can transfer to buses to Kanata, Barrhaven and central Nepean.
A 1996 survey found that 21% of shoppers used mass transit to get to the mall, and that Carlingwood was an exception in being accepted as primarily an automobile destination.[13]
The weekly traffic averages about 155 000 visitors per week.[14]
The shopping centre contains 120 stores and services on a single enclosed level. Its form is generally a large rectangular hallway with secondary branching halls from the six entrances. Offices and services including the management office are located on a small second level in the northwest corner of the building. There are also two small underground sections which include a Dollarama, The Bargain Shop and a Premier Fitness Centre.
The mall has two anchor tenants. The largest is a Sears department store at 179,319 sq ft (16,659 m2), the only such Ottawa outlet west of the downtown. The other anchor is a Loblaws grocery store with an area of 36,451 sq ft (3,386 m2).
The mall was formerly the home of one of the oldest and smallest Zellers stores in Ottawa until the store closed in 1999 and was replaced with a Rexall Pharma Plus. It also formerly contained a Marks & Spencer store which has been replaced by Royal Bank of Canada.[15]
The mall also contains three major banks: Scotiabank, CIBC and Royal Bank of Canada.
The Carlingwood Family Restaurant has long operated within the mall . The mall also has: A&W, Booster Juice Dairy Queen/Orange Julius, Jimmy The Greek, Kernels, Laura Secord, Made In Japan, Manchu Wok, New York Fries, Second Cup, Subway, Teaopia, Tim Hortons, Treats
The mall's hours of operation are:
Hours may change to support higher activity, such as during the Christmas season.
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