Visiting the West Edmonton Mall

Sometimes called the “Eighth Wonder of the World” by international travel writers, the West Edmonton Mall (WEM) is located in the province of Alberta, Canada. As of 2005, it is North America’s ‘s largest shopping mall and one of Western Canada’s most popular tourist attractions, with 22 million visitors per year. (Currently, the retail center in Beijing has already displaced the West Edmonton Mall as the world’s biggest shopping mall).

Situated in a suburban part of the city of Edmonton, the mall opened its doors to the public in September of 1981, and cost $1.2 billion to build. More than 800 stores and services occupy two main floors, including more than 100 eating establishments.

Notable Stores and Attractions

~Anchor stores are The Bay in the east, Sears in the northeast corner and Zellers in the southeast.

~Other retail tenants include The Brick, London Drugs, Sportchek, Chapters Books, Winners, Old Navy, Tommy Hilfiger, Swarovski, and Abercrombie and Fitch.

~Galaxyland is an amusement park located near the middle of the mall. It was originally called Fantasyland, until the Walt Disney Company took the mall to court, claiming ownership of the name which is used in its own theme parks. WEM lost the case and renamed the park Galaxyland. However, they were allowed to retain the Fantasyland Hotel name for the on-site hotel.

~Deep Sea Adventure / Sea Lions’ Rock: at 25 feet, the world’s deepest indoor manmade lake, complete with a flock of pink flamingos, submarines, dolphins, and a track on the bottom to take sightseers through an underwater world of make believe.

~The World Waterpark (the largest indoor waterpark in the country) and WEM’s Adventure Golf are both located in the mall’s west end.

~Several movie theaters (27 screens total) There are plans to covert one of the smaller, older movie theatres into an indoor skateboard park.

~Ice Palace (an NHL-size rink) is directly in the center of the mall.

~Large-scale replica of Christopher Colbumbus’s ship, the Santa Maria.

~Jubilations Dinner Theatre

~Palace Casino

West Edmonton Mall also has several “theme areas” including:

~Bourbon Street, featuring clubs and restaurants in a New Orleans-style setting.

~Europa Boulevard, with eclectic shops in an area resembling a European streetscape.

~Chinatown, which includes an Oriental grocery mart and Asian-style businesses.

Future developments

As if the mall weren’t big enough already, permission from the City of Edmonton was recently granted for an expansion. This will include a facility for trade shows and conventions, a 12-story office building and 600-unit apartment building, along with more retail space and parking.

West Edmonton Mall Trivia

~The mall has more than 23,500 employees and more than 20,000 parking spaces.

~In the early 1990s, the Woodwards department store chain, one of WEM’s anchors, went bankrupt and its stores were purchased by the Hudson Bay. As a result, for several years WEM had two full Bay department stores until one of the locations was closed. This led to a renovation that added a Famous Players multiplex.

~A small portion of the mall was damaged in 2004 when a severe hail-and-rain storm caused roofs to fail, drains to overflow and millions of dollars of damage, especially to the water park, ice palace and surrounding sections. The damage has since been repaired.

~Numerous celebrities have been attracted to West Edmonton Mall over the years, both for pleasure and business. The celebrity-owned Planet Hollywood had a location in WEM for several years, and Arnold Schwarzenegger considered shooting a movie there.