Metropolis at Metrotown (commonly referred to as Metrotown) is a three-storey
shopping mall
A shopping mall (or simply mall) is a North American term for a large indoor shopping center, usually anchored by department stores. The term "mall" originally meant a pedestrian promenade with shops along it (that is, the term was used to refe ...
complex in the
Metrotown area of
Burnaby
Burnaby is a city in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia, Canada. Located in the centre of the Burrard Peninsula, it neighbours the City of Vancouver to the west, the District of North Vancouver across the confluence of the Burrard I ...
, British Columbia, Canada. Opened in 1986, it is the largest mall in British Columbia and the
third-largest in Canada, behind Alberta's
West Edmonton Mall
West Edmonton Mall (WEM) is a shopping mall in Edmonton, Alberta, that is owned, managed, and operated by Triple Five Group. It is the second most visited mall in Canada, after the Toronto Eaton Centre in Toronto, followed by Metrotown Mall in ...
and Ontario's
Square One Shopping Centre
Square One Shopping Centre, or simply Square One, is a shopping mall located in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada. It is the largest shopping centre in Ontario and the second largest shopping centre in Canada, after the West Edmonton Mall. It ...
, with 27million customer visits annually. The mall is located adjacent to
Metrotown station on the
SkyTrain rapid transit system. Three office buildings are part of the complex along Central Boulevard.
History
Metrotown Centre opened in 1986 – attached to a new Woodward's department store, and a
Sears Canada
Sears Canada Inc. was a publicly-traded Canadian company affiliated with the American-based Sears department store chain. In operation from 1952 until January 14, 2018, and headquartered in Toronto, Ontario, the company began as Simpsons-Sears ...
department store that had been operating there since the early 1950s – on land that had held a
Ford Canada
Ford Motor Company of Canada, Limited ( French: ''Ford du Canada Limitée'') was founded on August 17, 1904, for the purpose of manufacturing and selling Ford automobiles in Canada and the British Empire. It was originally known as the Walkerville ...
motor factory, warehouses, other light industry, and a supermarket, and which was adjacent to the former Vancouver Interurban Rail line (now the route for the SkyTrain). The mall has been expanded and renovated several times, and has contributed to the rapid growth of the area's population. A new
Hudson's Bay store and an expansion wing was added in 1992.
Two additional shopping centres were constructed adjacent to the original Metrotown – Eaton Centre and
Station Square
Station Square is a indoor and outdoor shopping and entertainment complex located in the South Shore neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States across the Monongahela River from the Golden Triangle of downtown Pittsburgh. Station S ...
. These three different malls were connected by pedestrian overpasses, as were the two office towers known as the Metrotowers. In 1998, Eaton Centre added Metropolis, a collection of stores aimed towards younger shoppers, including the
SilverCity movie theatre which opened in 1998, and
Rainforest Cafe which opened in June 1998 (but was permanently closed in October 2001). The name Metropolis came to apply to Eaton Centre once its main tenant,
Eaton's department store, shut down in 1999. In 2005, a major expansion project combined Metrotown and Metropolis into a megamall, and added many new stores and Western Canada's largest
food court
A food court (in Asia-Pacific also called food hall or hawker centre) is generally an indoor plaza or common area within a facility that is contiguous with the counters of multiple food vendors and provides a common area for self-serve dinner. I ...
. Following this expansion, the two malls became one entity under the name "Metropolis at Metrotown". Station Square, however, was not included in this merge, and as of 2013, it is planned to be demolished to make way for a new high-rise complex to be named after Station Square.
Construction on Metrotower III, located immediately south of the other two office towers, began in mid-2008, was subsequently put on hold, and was completed in April 2014. This completed the original plan for the Metrotower complex.
In January 2018, Sears Canada closed as the company went out of business.
Surrounding neighbourhood
The
Metrotown neighbourhood is home to a number of smaller shopping centres. The pedestrian overpass originally connecting Station Square to the SkyTrain station was closed in November 2016, and is awaiting demolition. Pedestrians needing to get to and from the SkyTrain station and the shopping center are now required to use the street access. The Asian-themed
Crystal Mall opened near Metropolis in 2000, but has no direct connection.
Old Orchard Centre
Old or OLD may refer to:
Places
*Old, Baranya, Hungary
*Old, Northamptonshire, England
* Old Street station, a railway and tube station in London (station code OLD)
*OLD, IATA code for Old Town Municipal Airport and Seaplane Base, Old Town, Ma ...
is another shopping centre located nearby that is considered part of the Metrotown district. It is a strip plaza that predates the other shopping centres in the neighbourhood.
Stores
The complex consists of over 450 shops and services; the anchors are
Hudson's Bay,
Walmart
Walmart Inc. (; formerly Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.) is an American multinational retail corporation that operates a chain of hypermarkets (also called supercenters), discount department stores, and grocery stores from the United States, headquarter ...
,
Toys "R" Us
Toys "R" Us is an American toy, clothing, and baby product retailer owned by Tru Kids (doing business as Tru Kids Brands) and various others. The company was founded in 1957; its first store was built in April 1948, with its headquarters loc ...
,
T & T Supermarket
T&T Supermarket () is a Canadian supermarket chain that sells primarily Asian foods. The company is headquartered in Richmond, British Columbia. In 1993, the first T&T was opened in Burnaby's Metropolis at Metrotown, a shopping centre in the Me ...
,
Sport Chek
Sport Chek is the largest Canadian retailer of sporting clothing and sports equipment, with 191 stores throughout Canada as of 2020. It is the only national big box sporting goods retailer in Canada, although it is absent in the Northwest Terri ...
,
Indigo Books and Music
Indigo Books & Music Inc., known as "Indigo" and stylized "!ndigo", is Canada's only major English-language bookstore chain. It is Canada's largest book, gift, and specialty toy retailer, operating stores in all ten provinces and one terr ...
,
H&M,
Old Navy
Old Navy is an American clothing and accessories retailing company owned by multinational corporation Gap Inc. It has corporate operations in the Mission Bay neighborhood of San Francisco, California. The largest of the Old Navy stores are its ...
,
Real Canadian Superstore
Real Canadian Superstore is a chain of supermarkets owned by Canadian food retailing giant Loblaw Companies. Its name is often shortened to Superstore, or, less commonly, RCSS.
Originating in Western Canada in the late 1970s/early 1980s, the ...
,
Urban Behavior
Urban Behavior also spelled Behaviour is a unisex apparel retailer in Canada with a focus on club wear. The chain was founded in 1989 by Arif Noor.[Winners
Winners Merchants International L.P is a chain of off-price Canada, Canadian department stores owned by TJX Companies.
It offers brand name clothing, footwear, bedding, furniture, fine jewelry, beauty products, and housewares. Products are at a ...](_blank)
/
HomeSense
HomeSense (stylized as Homesense in Europe and the United States) is a Canadian chain of discount home furnishing stores owned by TJX Companies. It originated in Canada in 2001, and was expanded to Europe in 2008 and the United States in 2017. ...
,
Zara,
Cineplex Cinemas,
Uniqlo and
Muji
(), or is a Japanese retail company which sells a wide variety of household and consumer goods. Muji's design philosophy is minimalist, and it places an emphasis on recycling, reducing production and packaging waste, and a no-logo or "no-bran ...
.
Food chains found at the food court include
Chipotle
A chipotle (, ; ), or ''chilpotle'', is a smoke-dried ripe jalapeño chili pepper used for seasoning. It is a chili used primarily in Mexican and Mexican-inspired cuisines, such as Tex-Mex and Southwestern United States dishes. It comes in dif ...
,
Menchie's, and
Uncle Tetsu's.
Transportation
Immediately below the Central Boulevard entrance and covered walkway is a bus loop and exchange, which is a major hub for services coming in from other parts of Burnaby as well as Vancouver, Richmond, and New Westminster. The mall is also served by
Metrotown station on the
Expo Line of the SkyTrain network.
Future
In October 2019, Burnaby city council approved a long-term master plan that will eventually replace the mall with a downtown neighborhood with new high rises, retail space, streets, and pedestrian plazas.
See also
*
Eaton Centre
Eaton Centre is a name associated with shopping centres in Canada, originating with Eaton's, one of Canada's largest department store chains at the time that these malls were developed. Eaton's partnered with development companies throughout ...
*
Ivanhoé Cambridge
Ivanhoé Cambridge Inc. is a Canadian real estate company based in Montreal, Quebec. With assets around the globe, its areas of activity are investment, development, asset management, operations and leasing. The company's real estate portfolio c ...
*
List of shopping malls in Canada
This article is a list of notable shopping malls in Canada by province.
Canada's first indoor mall was the Lister Block, originally opened in 1852, in Hamilton, Ontario. The Lister Block was destroyed by fire and rebuilt in 1924. In 2011 the bui ...
References
External links
*
Ivanhoe Cambridge Official Website
{{Shopping Malls in Metro Vancouver
Shopping malls in Metro Vancouver
Shopping malls established in 1986
Buildings and structures in Burnaby
Tourist attractions in Burnaby
Ivanhoé Cambridge
1986 establishments in British Columbia