2006-12-19

West49 seems to be vastly underusing their space

I was walking around West Edmonton Mall today ["walking" would be code for "standing at the ice palace staring at the female figure skaters", would it? -ed] and happened to notice that West Mall 8 (or was it West Mall 6?), the movie theatre next to Galaxyland, is gone. I don't remember having seen it in the past 2 years (aka. 3 trips to WEM), but until now never really paid attention to the space.

This left me wondering suddenly what was being done with all the space. West49, the overpriced snowboarding culture store which stands where the theatre lobby used to reside, doesn't go downstairs at all. The top of the escalator now holding an annoying Roots display full of obnoxious maple leaves, and behind it only wall. Er, so what's being done with the huge area beneath the mall where at least 6 and perhaps 8 movie screens and associated seating were before? Converted merely to warehouse storage?

(There is in fact a vast and complicated series of warehouses and tunnels which run underneath the main floor of the mall, so this is more than mere conjecture)