North Hill Centre

North Hill Centre

Location	Calgary Alberta Canada
Coordinates	51°03′57″N 114°05′58″W
Address	1632 – 14 Avenue NW
Opening date	June 1958
Management	Bentall
No. of stores and services	100+
No. of anchor tenants	2 (major)
Total retail floor area	20,000 m2 (220,000 sq ft)
No. of floors	1
Website	http://northhillcentre.com

North Hill Centre is a shopping mall in Calgary. Alberta. The mall was opened in June 1958 and was Western Canada's largest shopping mall at the time. It was also Calgary's first ever shopping mall, as well as the first Calgary store to offer late-night shopping. The original anchor tenant was Simpsons-Sears., which still operates today in its original location as Sears Canada.

The mall opened at 1632 14 Ave N.W. in June 1958, offering about 30 stores and services. Hailed as the largest shopping centre in Western Canada at the time, it transformed the shopping experience for Calgarians. "It was revolutionary to have a mall and to have late-night shopping and all of that kind of stuff that is just quite normal for us now," said (spokeswoman Paula) Newhold. "The real experience was that it was all in one place - that was the interesting thing."

History

The original design for the mall called for an exterior strip mall design with a covered walkway.

1973 expansion

The first major renovation to the mall occurred in 1973. The mall expanded to include twenty more stores, and an enclosed mall area was constructed amongst the existing stores. The design called for a central corridor with irregularly sized columns and ceiling heights, presenting an inconsistent look to the storefronts in the mall. (Another Calgary shopping centre, Chinook Centre underwent a similar transformation from strip mall to enclosed mall.)

By the 1990s, anchor tenants for the mall were Sears, Canada Safeway and Super Valu, giving the mall the unusual distinction of having two major grocery stores. The site also included a separate building housing the North Hill movie theatre and a bowling alley. The Super Valu store closed in the mid-1990s as its owner retired the brand in favor of big-box Real Canadian Superstore locations, and the spot was filled by a succession of retailers until work began on a major mall renovation at the end of the 1990s.

2000 renovations

One of the entrances to North Hill Centre (2007)

In 2000, the mall was again heavily renovated, once again adopting the style of having key tenants accessible from the exterior of the building. The interior of the mall was also heavily renovated. A medical centre was add and a two-tower condominium complex was added on the south side. The Canada Safeway, originally located next to Sears, was relocated to the far end of the mall where the Super Valu grocery store had once been, and the mall's food court was completely redesigned, though it remained in its original location.

The North Hill Theatre and Fairview Bowling Alley, erected in the parking lot in 1967, had remained in operation until 1999, with the theatre ceasing business operations just after the run of Star Wars: Episode I. The theatre was one of Calgary's last major old-style single-screen movie palaces at the time of its demolition in 2000. The "Fairview" name was transferred to a bowling alley attached to the Pacific Place mall on Calgary's east side. The structure was demolished in order to make room for more parking, and to allow the footprint of the mall expand with the addition of several exterior-access-only retailers.

Although there is some limited covered parking available due to the positioning of the Renaissance condominiums, North Hill is one of the largest malls in the city not to offer any form of underground or parkade parking.