Port Place Shopping Centre

infobox shopping mall

---

caption =
shopping_mall_name = Port Place Shopping Centre
location = Nanaimo, British Columbia, Canada
opening_date = 1952 (original strip mall)
1967 (indoor mall, as Harbour Park)
developer =
manager = First Capital (Port Place) Corp.
owner = First Capital (Port Place) Corp.
number_of_stores = 40
number_of_anchors = 5
floor_area = 145,000 ft²
parking = 800
floors = 1
website = [http://www.portplaceshopping.com/ Port Place Shopping Centre]

Port Place Shopping Centre is an indoor shopping mall located in Nanaimo, British Columbia, Canada.

History

Port Place began as a two-store strip mall that was built in 1952 on the site of the former Nanaimo Sports Grounds in the downtown area, with Simpsons-Sears and Safeway as the original anchor tenants.

The existing facility was expanded in 1967 by attaching an indoor mall (the second one in Nanaimo, after Northbrook Mall, which opened in 1966), which was then named Harbour Park Shopping Centre. Safeway moved into a larger location in the newly-added mall portion, while Fields opened in the former Safeway space and Cunningham Drugs (which was bought out by Shoppers Drug Mart in 1970) joined the tenant list.

Harbour Park underwent expansion again in the early 1980s with the construction of more retail space. In the following years, Safeway and Shoppers Drug Mart closed their locations at the mall and Sears was relocated to Rutherford Mall in north Nanaimo; Thrifty Foods took over as the supermarket anchor in 1988, London Drugs opened a location next to Thrifty Foods, and after a period of use as a bingo hall, the former Sears space was divided and renovated to accommodate Liquidation World, a fitness gym, and several other retail spaces.

In 1996, Liquidation World and most of the other businesses in the old Sears location were forced to vacate their spaces to allow the Great Canadian Casino to move in. The only business in that location that was not forced to move was Subway, which has a long-term lease.

Plans for renovation and refurbishment of Harbour Park by its owners were begun in 2000, most notably the demolition of several former retail spaces near Fields to make way for a food court. After a lengthy delay in renovating that part of the mall, the renovations were finished and the food court opened in 2004. That same year, the mall name was changed to the present Port Place upon completion of the mall renovation project.

In addition to Thrifty Foods, London Drugs, Fields and Great Canadian Casino, other major tenants at Port Place include Orange Julius, Canada Post, the Medical Arts Centre clinic and MDS Metro Labs, the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, The Source by Circuit City (formerly Radio Shack), Purdy's Chocolates, BC Liquor Stores and Wendy's (built on the site of a former Simpsons-Sears auto service centre and gas station).

External links

* [http://www.portplaceshopping.com/ Port Place website]