Promenades Saint-Bruno facts for kids

Promenades St-Bruno, also known as CF Promenades St-Bruno, is a large shopping mall in Saint-Bruno, Quebec, Canada. It has two floors with lots of stores!

Workers started building the mall in 1976. It opened its doors in 1978. This mall is one of four special "fashion centres" managed by a company called Cadillac Fairview. Promenades St-Bruno is the biggest mall in the Montérégie area. People come to shop here from many towns, even from far away places like Saint-Hyacinthe and Sorel-Tracy.

The mall has two main big stores, called "anchor tenants": The Bay and Simons. When the mall first opened, it had five anchor stores. The Bay is the only one of the original five that is still there. It moved into a different spot in the mall in 1989.

Mall History: How It Grew

Promenades St-Bruno has changed a lot over the years. Many stores have come and gone, making the mall bigger and better.

Early Stores and Changes

From 1978 to 1992, there was a Steinberg's supermarket in the mall. It was a very big grocery store. Steinberg's also owned part of the mall. They had another store called Miracle Mart (later M store) right next to the supermarket. Both of these stores closed in 1992.

The next year, a store called Zellers took over most of the space where Steinberg's and the M store used to be. Zellers stayed until 2012. Then, a big American store called Target opened in that spot from 2013 to 2015. After being empty for four years, that area started to change again in 2019. A new grocery store called Avril Supermarché Santé and a public market are expected to open there in late 2020.

The Bay and Sears Changes

The original Simpsons store at Promenades St-Bruno closed in March 1989. The existing The Bay store then moved into Simpsons' empty space in June 1989. The old Bay location was empty for over a year.

In 1991, the mall expanded into The Bay's old space. A new section with 57 smaller shops and a Sears store opened. This made the mall much bigger! Sears opened on April 3, 1991. It was special because it focused more on clothes than other Sears stores at the time. Sears closed its doors on January 14, 2018.

What's in the Old Sears Spot Now?

The large space where Sears used to be has been divided up. Now, you can find a relocated Sports Experts, a Winners store, and a store called Imaginaire there. Sports Experts/Atmosphere moved into the second floor of the old Sears spot in May 2019. Winners opened on the first floor of Sears in September 2019. Imaginaire, a store from Quebec City, opened its first location in the Montreal area in late 2019.

Simons and Other Big Stores

Simons opened its first floor in the mall in August 2001. It took over part of the space that used to be Eaton's. Sport Experts/Atmosphere and five other shops took over the second floor of Eaton's. Simons plans to get even bigger in 2021 by expanding onto the second floor, where Sports Experts used to be.

Over the 1990s and 2000s, many large "big box stores" like Best Buy and Old Navy opened around the mall. Some of these stores are part of Promenades St-Bruno, but many are separate.

Interesting Facts About Promenades St-Bruno

Promenades St-Bruno was the first shopping mall in Canada to have three major fancy department stores at the same time: Simpsons, The Bay, and Eaton's. It was also one of the first malls in Quebec to have a food court when it opened in 1978.

Even though Cadillac Fairview now owns the whole mall, it was originally owned by Cadillac Fairview, Ivanhoe Corporation, and Eaton's together.

On March 17, 2017, there was a small incident above the mall. Two small planes had a minor collision, and parts landed in the mall's parking lot. No one in the mall was hurt.

Images for kids

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  Former Sears store from 1991 to 2018 (now the site of Winners, Sports Experts and Imaginaire).