New food court start of Londonderry Mall revival
A new food court opening Thursday at Londonderry Mall is the beginning of big changes planned for the northeast Edmonton shopping centre.
It’s the first stage of a $130-million redevelopment to turn the 44-year-old shopping centre back into a regional retail destination, Londonderry general manager Jordon Adams said.
The mall announced in 2014 that it was launching major renovations. Although the anticipated completion is not until 2017, Adams said the mall already looks much newer and brighter.
“We have done a total redevelopment of the shopping centre,” Adams said Wednesday. All common areas including entrances, porcelain flooring, storefronts, escalators, elevators, LED lights, washrooms, ceilings and seating areas have been renovated. Work continues on the building ’s exterior facades and on the Simons fashion and home-furnishings department store, opening in the fall of 2017.
The food court has been moved from the middle of the second floor to a new second-floor location on the building ’s west side. It has more seating, its own exterior entrance and looks like an interior terrace with lots of natural light from skylights to cut down on energy usage.
From utilitarian origins, mall food courts have grown more important when it comes to luring customers to the mall and keeping them there longer. “Food courts give people an experience and an ability to go somewhere to relax, enjoy some food and continue on their shopping day,” Adams said.
The former food court dated from the 1980s. The valuable space in the centre of the building will be turned into retail bays.
“All the major shopping centres in Edmonton have gone through a redevelopment,” Adams said. “Londonderry hasn’t taken that step in a long time. We have new ownership and a new management group and they were able to look at the vision of taking it to the next generation.”
The mall is run by 20 Vic Management Inc. and owned by Montez Corp., a company specializing in pension-fund real estate investment management. Londonderry wants to take advantage of the completion of the Anthony Henday ring road this year that will bring new customers to the mall while also better serving northeast Edmonton by giving the area its own fashion-focused destination shopping centre, Adams said.
Londonderry Mall opened in 1972. It was then the largest shopping centre west of Toronto and the only two-level mall in Western Canada. Since its heyday, it’s struggled to keep pace with other Edmonton malls, said Paul McElhone, dean of management at Concordia University of Edmonton.
“Londonderry has not been a premier mall in Edmonton and if they can renovate the mall and make it more contemporary and enticing for the consumer, any money they spend will be good money,” he said.