CF Fairview Park Mall
CF Fairview Park (commonly known as Fairview Park Mall) is a large shopping mall of 120 stores in Kitchener, Ontario, Canada.[1] Anchor stores are Hudson's Bay and Walmart, with one vacant anchor last occupied by Sears for which there are plans for redevelopment in the future.
| |
| Location | Kitchener, Ontario, Canada |
|---|---|
| Coordinates | 43.42487°N 80.43859°W |
| Address | 2960 Kingsway Drive |
| Opening date | 1966 |
| Management | Cadillac Fairview |
| Owner | Cadillac Fairview |
| No. of stores and services | 120 |
| No. of anchor tenants | 2 |
| Total retail floor area | 746,334 sq ft (69,336.7 m2) |
| No. of floors | 1 |
| Website | fairviewpark |
CF Fairview Park is bounded by Kingsway Drive to the north, Wilson Avenue to the west, Fairway Road to the south, and Highway 8 to the east. Its presence over the years has turned Fairway Road into a major commercial strip. It is one of the four biggest malls in the region with 730,000 square feet (68,000 m2) of gross leasable area.[2]
The mall is also a major public transit hub in Waterloo Region. Fairway station, located just west of the mall, is the terminus for many Grand River Transit bus routes as well as the southern terminus of the Ion rapid transit system.
History
Fairview Park opened in 1966, in the Parkway neighbourhood of the recently expanded City of Kitchener. A Simpsons-Sears department store had opened in August 1965, predating the mall's opening by a year, with the rest of the mall being constructed around it.[3]
The initial anchors were Simpsons-Sears at the south end and a Zehrs supermarket at the north end. A new wing with Woolco was added on the east in the early 1970s along with 20 stores, and Simpsons on the west was added in the early 1980s along with 40 more stores. In the time since, Simpsons-Sears has become Sears, Woolco was converted to a Walmart, and Simpsons became The Bay. The small Zehrs supermarket had been located facing Kingsway Drive, but moved to an outdoor plaza on Weber Street on the other side of Highway 8 (occupying the space of the former "HiWay Market" supermarket) and its space was redeveloped, partially into the current food court and partially into a PharmaPlus location (which later closed).
From early 2007 to that summer, the mall underwent a major $33.4-million redevelopment. This renovation included a new food court and new interiors, including higher ceilings. The parking lot was also refurbished. It was the first major renovation since 1986.[4]
Transit terminal
A bus terminal was located beside the southwest entrance to the Hudson's Bay store.[5] This facility operated as a major hub for Grand River Transit (GRT), with most of the routes served terminating there. The Region's Ion rapid transit system now services this area as well, at the Fairway station, which has its own associated bus connections; when that station came on-line in June 2019, the existing terminal closed.
References
- Fairview Park Directory Listing Archived 2012-02-07 at the Wayback Machine. Accessed July 16, 2007.
- Cadillac Fairview Retail Portfolio. Accessed July 16, 2007. Archived July 4, 2007, at the Wayback Machine
- Davis, Brent (2015-10-26), "New products, service led to Sears turnaround", Guelph Mercury, retrieved 2020-03-17
- "Fairview mall to get $33.4-million facelift". The Record. 2006-05-10.
- "GRAND RIVER TRANSIT BUS PLATFORMS at FAIRVIEW PARK" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2015-09-03. Retrieved 2015-10-26.
