An Analysis of Coquitlam Centre Mall

The Coquitlam Centre mall is a significant factor in the employment and economy of Coquitlam. It takes up a large area of space in downtown Coquitlam and helps to attract potential customers from all over the Lower Mainland to the area. This (debatably) causes a spillover effect of business to other local merchants and businessmen. As the mall is so important to the future of the City, it is what shall be analyzed in this report and compared to other malls in surrounding areas.

Information

Coquitlam town center was opened in August of 1979 and is situated upon 57 acres on land. At the time it was bordered by bush, a trailer park and scattered houses. It contains 910,000 square feet of retail space situated on two levels. This includes major stores such as The Bay, London Drugs, Sears, Sport Check, Zellers, T&T Supermarket, Coast Mountain Sports, Future Shop, Golf Town and Old Navy. There is also an extensive food court with several dozen restaurants. It also claims to be the only mall in the Lower Mainland to contain this combination of stores. It expanded in 2001 and according to its website it is now "at the very heart of the third largest commercial node in the Lower Mainland and is an integral part of the continuing success of the Coquitlam Town Center area." With the expansion in 2001 it now claims to include more than 200 various retail stores. The owner, Morguard Investments Limited, has been around since 1975 and owns industrial, office, retail, and mixed use space across Canada.

Location

Coquitlam Centre Mall is located at the intersection of Lougheed Highway and the Barnet Highway in downtown Coquitlam. With a population of 112,8901, Coquitlam is one of the larger cities in the province and downtown Coquitlam itself is shaping up to be a strong regional town center for all of the Tri-City area, with nothing but growth projected in the future. There are several apartment buildings in the close vicinity with several more under construction as well as other high density housing and an upper scale residential area located nearby on Westwood Plateau. Coquitlam City Hall is located down the street as well as a public library, and RCMP building. Other important nearby amenities include an aquatic complex, the Douglas College David Lam campus, car dealerships, town centre track, Pinetree community centre and school, Lafarge lake and several other smaller commercial centers including both retail and office space. There is also limited industrial activity located along Christmas Way. The Barnet highway is an important regional highway for the area that runs from where Lougheed highway meets Pinetree way and turns south. There is a large transit station directly across Barnet highway from the mall with both a bus loop and a train station for the West Coast Express. The location of Coquitlm Centre Mall in this area during the 1970's is partially responsible for the development of this part of Coquitlam as a regional town center.

Accessibility

The location of Coquitlam Centre Mall is very easy for customers to travel to. As previously mentioned it is located at the intersection of the Barnet and Lougheed Highways along an important regional transportation route. Lougheed Highway runs from Vancouver through Burnaby, Coquitlam, Port Coquitlam, Pitt Meadows, Maple Ridge, Mission and beyond. The Barnet highway runs from Burnaby, through Port Moody and Coquitlam before connecting to Lougheed Highway in front of the Mall. These highways connect nearly every city north of the Fraser River and East of Vancouver. Combined these highways connect directly to over 1 million people and over 8 cities. Lougheed highway also connects to the Trans Canada highway, providing easy access for people south of the Fraser River in population centers such as Surrey. There are also 2 major transit stations located across the highway from Coquitlam Centre Mall. There is a rail station for the West Coast express, a commuter train which runs from Mission to downtown Vancouver, with stops in most cities along the way. There is also a large TransLink bus terminal with busses directly connecting to Lougheed station (bus loop and skytrain station), Braid station (bus loop and sky train station), Port Moody station and Port Coquitlam station. These transit routes connect to almost all major population centers in the Lower Mainland. Between the highway access and the transit stations it is very easy to get oneself to and from Coquitlam Centre Mall either by driving or transit, making it very easy to access.

Viability

In the immediate future of the downtown Coquitlam area several key factors will affect the viability of Coquitlam Centre Mall. The Coquitlam Town Centre area has been designated as the regional town centre for the Northeast sector of the Greater Vancouver region,2 guaranteeing a level of development support for the area. The planned construction of a light rail transit (LRT) through the area to the Lougheed sky train station would coonect the area even more to Port Moody, Surrey, New Westminster, Burnaby and other areas. There are several planned stations in the Town Centre area including City Hall and the David Lam Campus of Douglas College as well as the Coquitlam Centre mall. There are also several new apartment buildings and other high density residential projects under construction in the area. The new David avenue connector that bridges the Coquitlam River and connects the town centre area with Burke Mountain will provide another transportation corridor and will provide easy access for residents of Burke Mountain to downtown Coquitlam. Also once the Burke Mountain area becomes fully developed another large pocket of population will be located nearby and with easy access. All of these plans portent a very good future for the area, and thus the viability of the Coquitlam Centre mall is likely not to be threatened and will likely increase within the foreseeable future. The one limiting factor however, will be local environmental challenges. Both nearby Hoy Creek and Coquitlam River are important salmon bearing waterways and any development nearby must be ecologically friendly to them. This combined with the mountains and parklands to the North will likely limit residential growth in the area to densification rather than expansion (with Burke Mountain being the exception). This can be seen as a positive aspect, however, as any further population growth will therefore likely be concentrated nearby to the mall, and there is still a lot of room for this type of growth nearby as most of the land is still single family housing units, with apartment buildings being the exception, rather than the norm.

Larger Processes

There are several prime examples of larger economic and geographic processes present in Coquitlam Centre mall. The mall's presence combined with the characteristics of the surrounding area (retail and office space) indicates the development of an edge city or regional town centre. The downtown Coquitlam area has in fact been designated as the regional town centre for the Northeast sector of the Greater Vancouver region as part of the livable region strategy by the GVRD. Its presence here also indicates that the area is in the post-industrial phase of the demographic transition theory, as it is a commercial venture based upon services and retail, rather than manufacturing or primary industries such as mining (although there are primary industries, namely gravel mining, a short distance away). Some of the stores located inside the Coquitlam Centre mall indicate larger processes as well. Stores such as T&T Supermarket as well as the variety of sushi stores, several American chain stores (such as Sears and Future Shop), several big fast food chains such as KFC and McDonalds in the food court, are physical evidence of globalization, along with many of the products carried by individual stores. Ethnic stores, again such as T&T supermarket, various sushi restaurants and others, also highlight immigration patterns from Eastern Asia to the local area. There is also evidence of the ageing baby boomer population in the popularity of stores such as Golf Town and in other aspects of the Age/Sex makeup of the surrounding area in other stores, such as fashion studios and the Body Shop. There used to be an Eaton's store located in the mall as well, but with the sale of the Eaton's company several years ago due to increased competition (also partially due to globalization) it was closed down. The Zeller's store in the mall is also now owned by the Bay, as is the rest of the Zeller's chain, due to its sale a few years ago as well.

Central Place Theory

The location and accessibility of Coquitlam Town Centre support Christaller's central place theory. This theory explains the spatial organize of settlements based upon service functions. The theory states that, as economic maximizers, retailers base their locations upon population size, site accessibility and other similar factors. It also states that locations where many of these factors are good will be turned into higher order centers that offer many or all of the goods and services available to customers. These factors tend to be strong in the downtown Coquitlam area. Under this theory the Coquitlam Centre mall would be a higher order provider of goods and services, as evidence by its large size (910,000 square feet) and number of shops (over 200).

Competitors

As a large regional mall, Coquitlam Centre Mall has several nearby competitors, these include:

New Westminster shopping centre is located at 555 6th street, New Westminster. It is a mixed use commercial building, 4 stories tall. It has a total area of 140,000 square feet, with 107,000 square feet of mainly retail on the first floor and approximately 33,000 square feet on the 2nd, 3rd and 4th floors used mainly for office space.3

Guildford town centre is located at 2695 Guildford Town centre in Surrey. It boasts 192 retail stores and approximately 979,300 square feet of area.4

Lougheed mall is located at the corner of Austin Avenue and North Road in Burnaby. It has a 649,000 square foot area and contains about 175 stores. 5

Coquitlam Centre mall has a relatively large population within its' market boundaries. Its market area consists of most of Coquitlam, Port Moody, and Port Coquitlam, giving it a substantial population base. This is likely a prime reason for its apparent success, if competition were too stiff and the market base it was located in was not large enough then it would not attract enough customers to make profit.

Conclusion

These various aspects are what help contribute to Coquitlam Centre mall's continuing success and its large contribution to the economy of Coquitlam, employment, as well as the development of downtown Coquitlam as a regional town center for the northeast Greater Vancouver region. Its location and accessibility are both excellent, its future viability seems more than likely, and it has captured a large area of the surrounding market. On top of this it also evidences several theories and overall trends in economic geography and has proved to be a very interesting study case.

Citations
1) http://www12.statcan.ca/english/profil01/CP01/Details/Page.cfm?Lang=E&Geo1=CSD&Code1=5915034&Geo2=PR&Code2=59&Data=Count&SearchText=Coquitlam&SearchType=Begins&SearchPR=01&B1=Population&Custom=
2) http://www.coquitlam.ca/NR/rdonlyres/8F9D8268-51B1-4F02-B3C2-734AEB4E69A2/31479/TownCentreProfile.pdf
3) http://www.westminstermall.ca/leasing_info/building_info/building_description.htm
4) http://www.ivanhoecambridge.com/Properties/prop_shop_malldetail_factsheet.asp?MallID=113&MallName=Guildford+Town+Centre&Search=all
5) http://www.gvrd.bc.ca/livablecentres/lougheed.htm

Bibliography

http://www.coquitlam.ca
www.statcan.ca/start.html
http://www.westminstermall.ca
www.coquitlamcentre.com
www.guildfordtowncentre.com
http://www.gvrd.bc.ca/livablecentres/lougheed.htm
www.translink.bc.ca
www.google.com (maps)
Stutz, F and Warf, B The World Economy: Resources, Trade and Development. Prentice Hall, 2005, New Jersey
Class notes as well as first hand observations