Frontenac Mall

infobox shopping mall
shopping_mall_name = Frontenac Mall


location = Kingston, Ontario, Canada
opening_date = 1960
manager = RioCan
number_of_stores = 57 (many now vacant)
number_of_anchors = 4
floor_area = convert|281520|sqft|m2|abbr=on.
floors = 1
website = [http://www.whatsonkingston.com/shopping/frontenac/index.cfm Frontenac Mall]

The Frontenac Mall is an indoor shopping mall located at 1300 Bath Road (at Centennial Drive) in Kingston, Ontario, Canada. Originally built in 1967 just outside the Kingston city limits on what was Highway 33, its original anchors were Woolco and the Dominion Stores grocery chain. It was the Kingston area's first enclosed mall - the Kingston Shopping Centre, opened in 1955, was not converted to an enclosed mall until 1971.

The Woolco retail chain was subsequently acquired by Wal-Mart, which operated at this location for several years but has since relocated to a free-standing building elsewhere in the suburban west end leaving a ghostbox; the Dominion supermarket chain was acquired by A & P (which still operates at this location, but under a discount brand with no in-store deli or bakery).

The current anchor stores are now Food Basics (a low-end brand of A & P), Value Village (a second-hand store), Liquidation World (a surplus merchandise dealer) and Premier Fitness (a gymnasium).

History

Before the construction of the Cataraqui Town Centre (1982), the Frontenac Mall was the second-largest in the Kingston area (the former Kingston Centre, now demolished, being largest at 79 stores). It had undergone one major expansion in the late 1970s, which added the section currently occupied by the grocery and dollar stores. The mall had brisk retail traffic through the early 1980s, when it remained open until 10:00 p.m. weekdays and Saturdays, while the rival Kingston Centre closed at 6:00 p.m. due to more restrictive retail hours of operation in the city proper.

The mall once housed a Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce branch, restaurants, a Shoppers Drug Mart and a Tim Hortons kiosk - all now gone. The drug store has now been replaced by one-dollar retailer Dollarama, leaving the mall without a post office and with Food Basics as its sole pharmacist.

The original primary rivals to the Frontenac Mall were the Kingston Centre (which has since been demolished and replaced with outdoor mall facilities) and a nearby K-Mart Plaza (now in use as a self-storage facility since K-Mart closed its Canadian operations in the mid-1990s).

While the mall had initially weathered the increased competition from the newer Cataraqui Town Centre, the demise of the Dominion grocery chain and the Woolco department store chain in the 1980s and 1990's had the effect of pushing the mall further toward the low-end of the market; discounters Food Basics and Wal-Mart became the eventual successors to the mall's original moderate-price anchors at the chain level. While this made the facility far less attractive to small, high-end "boutique" stores and specialised local vendors, it remained initially viable and attractive to discounters and dollar stores.

This was to change to the mall's detriment when Wal-Mart vacated the primary anchor position, moving to a newly-built free-standing facility. The former department store space was left vacant, eventually being split into three smaller spaces: Liquidation World occupies what was the Woolco mall entrance location and Value Village occupies the opposite end of the same space, separated by Premier Fitness.

There is currently no large department store to serve as an anchor. The mall is as of 2008 operating near 50% vacancy, with remaining vendors including three dollar stores and various low-end retailers (including a remainder book store). Frontenac Mall is technically now, once again, the second-largest Kingston, Ontario shopping centre and remains operational but at a vacancy rate dangerously close to that of a dead mall.

Most of the facility is constructed as one single floor, at ground level; the sole exceptions being a small amount of professional second-floor office space, plus a small vacant basement area which was the location of a store in the now defunct Biway Stores discount chain.

Anchors & Majors

*Premier Fitness (62,787 sq ft, gymnasium and pool facilities)
*Food Basics (39,953 sq ft, discount grocery and pharmacy)
*Value Village (34,573 sq ft, used clothing and household goods)
*Liquidation World (25,685 sq ft, surplus retail goods)
*Dollarama (9,743 sq ft, one of three dollar stores on-site)

External links

* [http://www.whatsonkingston.com/shopping/frontenac/index.cfm Frontenac Mall website]