CrossIron Mills: A Fairy Tale
Posted on September 9th, 2009 by Derek McBurneysadsa in Reviews, Sustainability, Urban Planning
Alberta hasn't had a new shopping mall built in twenty years. This isn't because Albertans hate shopping malls, quite the contrary, our malls are some of the most popular locations in the province. The lack of new shopping malls in Alberta boils down to (like so many other things) making money. Shopping malls are expensive to build and strip mall retail centers are considerably cheaper. Sure, they lack roofs and you have to drive from one end to another just to get to all the stores, but the people will still come, enclosed mall or not. Why? Because with developers building poorly designed suburbs in search of a better bottom line and people looking to live in a house a little bigger than their means buying into them, these strip malls are often the only shopping available that is anywhere near. Everyone wins, well, except your gas tank, and the environment. But you get a quiet neighbourhood and the developers maximize their profits.
When I found out CrossIron Mills was defying the trend and being built as an enclosed shopping mall, I got excited.
