West Royalty is a neighbourhood of the city of

Charlottetown Charlottetown is the capital and largest city of the Canadian province of Prince Edward Island, and the county seat of Queens County. Named after Queen Charlotte, Charlottetown was an unincorporated town until it was incorporated as a city in ...

in central Queens County,

Prince Edward Island Prince Edward Island (PEI; ) is one of the thirteen Provinces and territories of Canada, provinces and territories of Canada. It is the smallest province in terms of land area and population, but the most densely populated. The island has seve ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

History

West Royalty was originally a farming community in the western part of Queens Royalty, from which it derives its name. It was officially designated a settlement in 1939 and it became a

village A village is a clustered human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet but smaller than a town (although the word is often used to describe both hamlets and smaller towns), with a population typically ranging from a few hundred to ...

in 1980. It was amalgamated into the City of Charlottetown on April 1, 1995. Presently a neighbourhood, West Royalty has a mix of housing, commercial and light industrial districts as well as the major retail district centred on the intersections of Route 1 and Route 2, as well as Route 2 and the perimeter highway.

Geography

West Royalty is located in the northwestern part of the city on the border of Spring Park,

Sherwood Sherwood may refer to: Places Australia *Sherwood, Queensland, a suburb of Brisbane *Sherwood, South Australia, a locality *Shire of Sherwood, a former local government area of Queensland *Electoral district of Sherwood, an electoral district from ...

and Winsloe (all neighbourhoods of Charlottetown). West Royalty's western boundary is defined by the North (Yorke) River which separates Charlottetown from the town of

Cornwall Cornwall (; kw, Kernow ) is a historic county and ceremonial county in South West England. It is recognised as one of the Celtic nations, and is the homeland of the Cornish people. Cornwall is bordered to the north and west by the Atlantic ...

. Its northwestern boundary (and that of the city) is shared with the adjacent village of Miltonvale Park.

Suburban growth

During the 1960s, Route 1, the

Trans-Canada Highway The Trans-Canada Highway ( French: ; abbreviated as the TCH or T-Can) is a transcontinental federal–provincial highway system that travels through all ten provinces of Canada, from the Pacific Ocean on the west coast to the Atlantic Ocean o ...

, was constructed through the community which led to increased residential and commercial growth. The West Royalty Industrial Park (now West Royalty Business Park) was established by the provincial government in the 1970s as part of an economic development program and became a major employer. West Royalty has experienced the majority of residential growth in the greater Charlottetown area from the 1970s-1990s and includes several residential subdivisions: * Orchard Hill subdivision * Lewis Point Park subdivision * Beach Grove subdivision * Highland View subdivision * Gates subdivision * Bell Heights subdivision * Richmond Hill subdivision * Park West subdivision * Upton Park subdivision * Sandlewood Park subdivision During the 1970s, the Charlottetown Mall was established at the intersection of Route 1 and Route 2, making this area of West Royalty the province's primary retail centre. Further

big box store A big-box store (also hyperstore, supercenter, superstore, or megastore) is a physically large retail establishment, usually part of a chain of stores. The term sometimes also refers, by extension, to the company that operates the store. The te ...

development in the 1990s and 2000s initially spurred by the establishment of the province's first big box store (a

Sobeys Sobeys Inc. is the second largest supermarket chain in Canada, with over 1,500 stores operating across Canada under a variety of banners. Headquartered in Stellarton, Nova Scotia, it operates stores in all ten provinces and accumulated sales o ...

supermarket) in the vicinity of the mall has seen stores such as

Canadian Tire Canadian Tire Corporation, Limited is a Canadian retail company which operates in the automotive, hardware, sports, leisure and housewares sectors. Its Canadian operations include: Canadian Tire (including Canadian Tire Petroleum gas stations a ...

Best Buy Best Buy Co. Inc. is an American multinational consumer electronics retailer headquartered in Richfield, Minnesota. Originally founded by Richard M. Schulze and James Wheeler in 1966 as an audio specialty store called Sound of Music, it was rebra ...

, and

Walmart Canada Walmart Canada is the Canadian subsidiary of Walmart which is headquartered in Mississauga, Ontario. It was founded on March 17, 1994, with the purchase of the Woolco Canada chain from the F. W. Woolworth Company. Originally consisting of disco ...

locate in the area. The construction of the Charlottetown Perimeter Highway in the early 2000s north of the mall location has seen a new big box retail development called the Royalty Power Centre.

References

{{PEI Former community municipalities in Prince Edward Island Neighbourhoods in Charlottetown