At the corner of Cambie and Garden City roads in Richmond, B.C., sits a three-storey shopping mall. Although it’s down the street from the busy Continental Shopping Centre and a block away from Aberdeen Centre and President Plaza, its quietness is in sharp contract with these other malls.
Parked cars and lights in the shops remind people it is an operational mall, but the peeling paint on the blank ad boards and the empty alleys raises some doubts.
Pacific Plaza at 8888 Odlin Crescent opened in 1998. It has the same name as one of the most popular shopping centres in Hong Kong.
“I heard many people say they’ve been in Richmond for over 20 years, but they had no idea there was such a building at this location,” said Kenneth Ho, secretary of the plaza’s strata council and owner of Origin Café.
The newly elected strata council, which is joined by some younger-generation owners, is working with other business owners to upgrade the 25-year-old mall to give it a new look and put it back on the Richmond map.
Unique design poses challenges
Unlike other shopping malls where shops are situated around a central location, Pacific Plaza is U-shaped with a three-storey parking lot in the centre and the shops lined along the sides.
Between the car park and shops is an escalator on each side covered by a dome.
“It’s a mystery why the mall was designed in this way back then,” said Ho, adding it was one of the largest malls in Richmond when it was built.
As a result of the scattered design, the majority of businesses are professional services such as accounting firms, law firms, clinics or extracurricular schools.
Each shop is owned by an individual, many from different backgrounds, either focusing on their own business or living abroad and renting out the unit.
This made it challenging to get everyone on-board to improve the mall, said Edwin Tsang, strata council chair.
“There are a lot of things that require modifications and we have to look into. A lot of work has just been put aside in the past decades, and now because the building is getting old, if we don’t fix it, things will get worse," he said.
For many malls, the food court is the main driver of traffic to the shops. But, because of the unique design of the mall – the food court is in a closed space and people can’t access it unless they find the entrance – that doesn’t apply to Pacific Plaza.
“You don’t see the food court from outside…I guess back then, the food court was mainly for business owners and their employees to use, but now the demand has changed,” said Ho.
So despite some great restaurants, foot traffic is much lower than at other malls. Ho said most customers here are returning customers who initially found the place online or were referred by friends.
“Once they tried our food, they kept coming back. But it’s not a place you would walk past and be like, ‘I’m going to check it out,’” he said.
New council brings new vision
When Ho was looking for a location for his restaurant three years ago, he saw the great potential in Pacific Plaza, despite its lack of maintenance and low traffic.
“The plaza is in a great location and as someone with an engineering background, I can tell that the structure of the building is very stable and it was constructed with quality materials,” he said.
"It also has plenty of parking spots and many experienced professionals providing quality services."
The new strata council has reached out to other business owners about upgrading the mall. They’ve also redesigned its newsletter to keep business owners up-to-date on any developments and hired a professional property management team.
“We will also do more events and promotions to attract more people, for example, hanging art work done by students in the plaza's art schools, to make the mall not just a service place but also a fun place for people to visit,” said Ho.
"We will move forward step by step."
