Carlingwood Shopping Centre
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| Location | 2121 Carling Avenue Ottawa, Ontario, Canada K2A 1H2 |
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| Coordinates | 45°22′19″N 75°46′12″W / 45.372°N 75.77°WCoordinates: 45°22′19″N 75°46′12″W / 45.372°N 75.77°W |
| Opening date | 1956 |
| Owner | 20 Vic Management Inc. |
| No. of stores and services | 120 |
| No. of anchor tenants | 2 (Loblaws & Sears) |
| Total retail floor area | 525,934 sq ft or 48,860.9 m2 |
| No. of floors | 1 (with some low-level space, and a small 2nd floor) |
| Parking | Over 2,500 parking spaces |
| Website | www.carlingwood.com |
Carlingwood Mall (or also called Carlingwood Shopping Centre) is a major mall located in the west end of the city of Ottawa, Ontario. It is operated by 20 Vic Management Incorporated. The mall opened in 1956 and was one of the city's first major shopping centres.
Simpsons-Sears department store was opened in 1955. It was then a two-floor department store with 160,400 square feet (14,900 m2) of retail space.
Carlingwood opened in 1957 and offered 40 stores and was at the time the largest shopping centres in Ottawa. One of the selling points of the mall was its extensive 24 acres (97,000 m2) of free parking. Besides, Sears, one of the early stores to move into the mall was the established shoe store Armstrong & Richardson. Armstrong & Richardson is still in operation in Carlingwood.
In 1957, the Carlingwood Branch of the Ottawa Public Library opened in the mall, the first mall library in Canada. The branch later moved to a nearby custom-built facility in 1966.
In 2002 the management of the mall was criticised by CUPE, a labour union, for locking out cleaning staff who were part of the union in favour of non-union staff who received minimum wage and no benefits. The CUPE boycott of the mall ended with a victory for the union. Bill Murnighan, a writer for Our Times, used the dispute as an example of the "crossroads" that union organising faced in Canada at the beginning of the millennium.
Although the strike was directed at the shopping centre in the interest of gaining more publicity and having more impact, the cleaning staff were actually not employees of the shopping centre. The cleaning of the shopping centre is contracted out, and the cleaning staff were actually striking against the shopping centre to put pressure on their employer, Allans Maintenance.
Until July 2005 the Alex Dayton Seniors Activity Centre, co-founded by Ottawa Mayor Bob Chiarelli, was located near entrance three in the east side of the mall. For the 2007 Ontario election, the space was used as the office for provincial politician Jim Watson's re-election campaign.
The mall was renovated in the mid 2000s to add seating and other "comfort" improvements. In an interview with Ottawa Business Journal, former General Manager Denis Pelletier named the renovation as one of the reasons for the mall's successful 2005 Christmas shopping season, along with the mall's new bargain store, the Sears anchor, and easy customer access. This renovation has resulted in a very customer-friendly centre. In the four main passages, there are upholstered benches, capable of seating over 180 people. In addition, there are over 150 tables, in the three refreshment areas, each with two or more seats. Both sitting and refreshment areas are decorated with planters containing trees or shrubs. .
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Wikipedia