Champlain Mall facts for kids
| Location | Brossard, Quebec, Canada |
|---|---|
| Coordinates | 45°28′23.91″N 73°28′13.26″W / 45.4733083°N 73.4703500°W |
| Address | 2151, boulevard Lapinière |
| Opening date | October 30, 1975 |
| Developer | Ivanhoe Corporation |
| Management | Cominar Investment Trust |
| Owner | Cominar Investment Trust |
| No. of stores and services | +- 150 |
| No. of anchor tenants | 4 |
| Total retail floor area | 715,000 sq ft (66,400 m2). (GLA) |
| No. of floors | 1 |
| Parking | Outdoor and 4-level parking garage Capacity: 4140 cars |
The Champlain Mall (also known as Mail Champlain in French) is a big shopping mall. You can find it in Brossard, Quebec. It's located where Taschereau Boulevard and Lapinière Boulevard meet. The mall is named after Samuel de Champlain. It also connects to the Champlain Bridge, which was built years before the mall opened.
Champlain Mall is in a great spot in Brossard. It's on Taschereau Boulevard, a very busy street. It's also close to Autoroute 10. Plus, it's right next to the Terminus Brossard-Panama bus station. Because of its easy-to-reach location, about 6.4 million people visit the mall every year!
Contents
How Champlain Mall Started
The story of Champlain Mall began a long time ago. It was in October 1957, even before the city of Brossard was created. A company called Ivanhoe Corporation bought land to build a shopping center. They planned it for the corner of what is now Provencher and Pelletier boulevards.
It took 15 years for the mall to be built. Ivanhoe asked the new City of Brossard for permission in 1960. The mall was built in three main stages.
Opening Day and First Stores
The first part of Champlain Mall opened on October 30, 1975. It had 50 stores ready for shoppers. Two very important stores, called "anchors," opened first. These were Sears and Steinberg's.
Even before the whole mall opened, Sears and Steinberg's were already open. Sears opened on March 12, and Steinberg's on April 16 of that year. The Sears store at Champlain Mall was the very first one in the Greater Montreal area.
Growing Bigger: Phases Two and Three
The second part of the mall opened on September 1, 1977. This added 50 more stores to the mall. A new anchor store, Miracle Mart, also joined. Later, in 1986, Miracle Mart changed its name to just M.
The third and final building phase finished in August 1988. This made the mall much larger, increasing its size by 40 percent. It grew to over 700,000 square feet! During this time, another big store, The Bay, opened its doors on August 3, 1988. About 50 new smaller shops were also added.
This expansion created two new sections of the mall. These sections both lead to The Bay store. The mall's current food court was also built then. A multi-level parking lot was added too. There was even an amusement arcade at that time. Today, a store called Archambault is in that space.
Changes Over the Years
In 1992, the Steinberg's supermarket closed down. Another grocery store, Metro Inc., took its place until 2002. Later that year, the space was split. An existing Sports Experts store in the mall expanded into part of it. A new Atmosphere store took the other part.
A fashion store called Les Ailes de la Mode opened its first location at Champlain Mall in 1994. It moved into the spot where the M Store used to be. Years later, in 2018, Decathlon opened its first Canadian store there. Les Ailes de la Mode had closed in 2017.
Sadly, Sears closed its doors on January 8, 2018. This happened just before the company closed all its remaining stores in Canada.
Main Stores and Shops
Champlain Mall has many different stores. Here are some of the biggest ones, also known as "anchor" stores. They are listed by how much space they take up.
Anchor Stores
- Hudson's Bay (about 144,559 square feet)
- Decathlon (about 60,000 square feet)
- Atmosphère/Sports Experts (about 37,542 square feet)
- Archambault (about 17,664 square feet)
Who Owns the Mall?
When Champlain Mall first opened, it was owned by Ivanhoe Corporation and Sears together. This partnership continued for many years. Even when The Bay, a competitor to Sears, opened in 1988, they still owned the mall together.
Later, Sears sold its share of the mall. Then, the mall was owned equally by Ivanhoe Cambridge (the new name for Ivanhoe) and another company called Healthcare of Ontario Pension Plan (HOOPP).
In 2014, Ivanhoe Cambridge sold its part of Champlain Mall to Cominar. Cominar also bought HOOPP's share. So now, Cominar owns the whole mall. However, Ivanhoe Cambridge still has a small ownership in Cominar itself. This means they are still connected to the mall in a way.
