SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - Anyone entering Centre Square Mall through the library entrance on 49 Street will be greeted by three of the mall's six empty stalls. Those empty spaces reduce the visibility of the current stores in the mall and the amount of traffic coming in, according to three shopkeepers.

CD Plus manager Aaron Hernandez stands outside his store in Centre Square Mall in Yellowknife March 2, 2010. Behind and to the right of him are empty stores. - Jeanne Gagnon/NNSL photo

"It affects the amount of traffic coming in and out of the mall, that's for sure," said CD Plus manager Aaron Hernandez. "It doesn't look good with a lot of empty spots in the mall. Some stores tend to get hidden away now because nobody knows where the filled spots are."

CD Plus' current location, near the library entrance, was supposed to be temporary until it found a new spot, but more than a year has passed.

P&T Alterations and Embroidery has been at its present location, near the mall's entrance on Franklin Avenue, for a decade. Across the aisle is a large vacant space, unlit when Yellowknifer spoke to the store's owner, Tai Tran.

The darker area doesn't help his business, he said, adding the mall's management has to rectify the situation.

"Turn the light on and leave it on to make the mall look brighter, nice, warm and more friendly because it's too dark," he said.

Further inside the mall is Grower Direct, a flower shop located next to P&T Alterations and Embroidery but also across from that same unlighted empty stall.

"All I know is that we have a dark corner. When the lights are off, it takes away the visibility of our store," said flower shop owner Richard Birch. "It doesn't make anything appealing or enticing to come down here."

He added the lights are supposed to stay on, but quite often it's not the case.

Birch said Grower Direct has been at its present location in the mall for the last 15 years. In the last two-and-a-half years that he's managed the store, he said the stall has been empty for more than a year. He added the store's location is good when there are businesses around, not empty spaces.

"People aren't going to browse down on our side, which means impulse buying is down tremendously because people don't come down to our side," he said.

Birch said he thinks the biggest problem is the city's failed attempt at building a "big city downtown area." That's partly why he opened Rebecca's Flowers Too on Borden Drive.

"They raised the parking meter rates and they want to enhance the downtown, but they're driving people away because people can't afford it," said Birch. "People are constantly being nickeled and dimed. They just don't like it. The mall doesn't provide parking for customers.

"This is why we have a shop on the other side (of town), and it's doing quite well simply because people don't have to pay for parking. They don't have to fight traffic and fight the street people."

Calls to the manager of the upper portion of the mall, Derek Carmody, were not returned.

A representative from the owner of the lower portion of the mall, HREIT Holdings 18 Corporation, would not comment.