The ground breaks and the mall opens: A look back at the days before Coquitlam Centre

Park Royal had opened in West Vancouver and Lougheed Mall was coaxing Coquitlam residents across the street to Burnaby but, in the 1970s, the Tri-Cities didn’t have a mall of their own.

There was a concept for a Ridgeway mall, an idea for a shopping centre along the eastern boundary of Port Moody, and plans for a $50-million shopping centre on the southeast corner of Lougheed Highway and Shaughnessy Street in Port Coquitlam.

The other idea, pitched by developer Ira Young, may have appealed to a competitive spirit in Coquitlam.

Located at Barnet Highway and what was then Pine Tree Way, the centre would be twice the size of Lougheed Mall.

The then-$35-million centre was also pitched at a time when Coquitlam and Port Coquitlam were each trying to: “be the focus of development in the northeast sector,” wrote reporter Dave Smith in the Columbian newspaper.

A developer with Marathon Realty had publicly said Port Coquitlam had an edge, as the site was primed for development and Hudson’s Bay had committed to be an anchor tenant.

While there was some hesitancy in Coquitlam (one councillor expressed concern about a shopping centre surrounded by a “sea of asphalt), the city owned a good portion of the property and was able to quickly advance the proposal.

The Bay, Woodward’s and Eaton’s all ended up at Coquitlam Centre, marking the rare time when the three retail giants were under the same roof.

Designed by the architect B. James Wesley, the 800,000-square foot mall included 130 stores, 4,200 parking spots, as well as 20 works of sculpture and 200 panels of stained glass.

An avid art collector, Young seemed to take pride in the esthetics of the Coquitlam Centre, remarking to a reporter that: “Most shopping centres are like machines.”

Eventually built for $60 million, the mall officially opened on Aug. 15, 1979.

Young’s company Praxis Group and partner Daon Development Corp. sold the mall to Morguard Properties in 1982.

Detour

In a literally roundabout way, the mall helped Young find the next chapter of his life.

An associate of Young’s named Jim Greenwood asked if his two sons – both of whom were slalom racers – might be able to use the sea of asphalt around the mall to get in a few practice laps, according to an account in Driving.

At the time, the mall was closed on Sundays, and Young decided to let the racers use the lot. Whether out of curiosity or competitiveness, Young got in his car and drove the makeshift course as well.

We can only guess he was happier behind the wheel than he was in the mall.

By the early 1980s Young was zigging and zagging around the United States, gunning for the checkered flag at Sebring and Daytona.

Young died in 2003. He was posthumously inducted into the Greater Vancouver Motorsport Pioneers Society