| In Ottawa and across Ontario retail stores vary from your small individual retailer like you neighborhood corner store to the large big box operations normally found in the newer neighborhoods and suburbs. Big box stores found in the inner city of Ottawa as well as outside the green belt in areas such as Orleans, Kanata and Barrhaven. They normally range from 100,000 square feet all the way to 130,000 square feet. These stores offer everything from clothing and shoes to sporting equipment and audio and visual equipment. We do see warehouse stores and home improvements store with a larger building square footing as well as smaller retailers selling anything from music compact discs all the way to office supplies. These smaller retailers have a building of 25,000 square feet to 50,000 square feet.
Shopping centers are normally divided under 3 categories which are the regional shopping center normally consisting of 400,000 square feet to 800,000 square feet and offer a wide variety of products normally found in a covered building. Generally these regional shopping centers have a large store as tenant such as a large supermarket or a super store. These super stores are generally the ones attracting people to the mall. In Ottawa these shopping centers can be found along the Ottawa transit way allowing anybody to visit the regional shopping center easily. Super regional centers are normally bigger in size and are found along side of a major road or highway. The second category is the community shopping centers which are approx 400,000 square feet or less in size they also have bigger tenants who attract people to the mall. The community shopping centers in Ottawa are generally found on major roads to allow for maximum visibility. Finally the smallest type of shopping cent res in Ottawa is the neighborhood shopping centers. They are normally under 9,300 square meters and range from 4 to 10 units. They offer everyday products such as a convenient store, hair dressers and barber or restaurant. These neighborhood shopping centers generally have a single tenant attracting people to the strip mall.
These big box stores have given way to the creation of power centers. Power centers in Ontario are becoming more and more popular and always becoming larger and larger. These power centers are generally around 350,000 square feet all the way to 650,000 square feet. These tenants are typically the same big box stores simply grouped together with others.
Although we find most of the big shopping centers away from the downtown core Ottawa has one big shopping center in the heart of downtown and the Byward market called the Rideau Center. Because of its location in Ottawa the Rideau Center attracts thousands and thousands of people's daily. Located in proximity to downtown corporate buildings and government employees the mall is always very busy. |
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