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SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
Centre Square Mall is acting as an anchor on the city's downtown revitalization plans and the situation won't improve unless its owners get their act together or sell the mall to someone who will, says a city councillor who recently took to the Internet to catalogue his complaints and solutions on his blog.

Adrian Bell puts his foot down on one of the stone benches outside Centre Square Mall on Wednesday. Bell said the benches are just one of several "Band-Aid" solutions owners have come up with over the years that haven't improved the mall. - Cody Punter/NNSL photo

"Have they come up with a plan or are they just waiting for the taxpayer to bail them out?" asks Bell.

"There is nothing on the horizon to fix these problems. It's been happening for 15 years."

City councillor Adrian Bell took Yellowknifer for a tour of Centre Square Tuesday afternoon, where he pointed to its boarded up entrance on the south side of the building, locked up bathrooms, a lack of parking, and ineffective security.

One of the most glaring examples of the poor decision-making on display, says Bell, are the stone benches the upper level ownership installed at the mall's west entrance on Franklin Avenue in 2011.

The fire marshal had ordered owner Royal Host to install a wheelchair ramp after closing off the Yellowknife Inn from the mall with a glass partition.

Instead of putting a metal railing on the ramp as is commonly done, Royal Host bordered the ramp with the stone benches, which are now continuously populated by loiterers who smoke, spit, drink, fight and generally obstruct the entrance to the mall.

For Bell, these architectural blunders are the epitome of the mall owners' incompetence.

"Talk about putting lipstick on a pig," he said.

Jennifer McHugh, assistant manager at The Source electronics store in the lower mall, said it has been frustrating working in the mall for the past two years. When people come into the store, all they want to talk about how empty the mall is, she said. "It's pretty pathetic," said McHugh. "It's completely dead in the hallways."

She said it is no secret people who frequent the mall to loiter, drink and fight outnumber shoppers on a regular basis.

"They've peed on it enough times, it belongs to them now."

While Bell said security has not done enough to deal with loiterers, McHugh believes security has been more hands-on in dealing with problems of late, and that security has generally improved. However, this has not had the desired effect in improving the amount of shoppers.

"Since they've cracked down a little harder, it's gone from lots of bad traffic, to no traffic."

Bell's biggest beef is with the dual ownership of the mall. He believes there is a lack of co-ordination between Huntingdon Capital Corp., which owns the lower mall, and Royal Host, which owns the upper mall.

According to Bell, each of the owners seem to be playing vacancies off against one another in a battle to offer lower rents while refusing to take responsibility for the facility as a whole.

"It's a race to the bottom," said Bell.

To make matters worse, neither of the owners are based in Yellowknife, with Huntingdon Capital Corp. based in Vancouver and Royal Host in Halifax. Bell said they are out of touch with the needs of the mall as a result and its dwindling customer base.

"If they walked through here they would smack themselves in the head and say, 'What are we doing?" said Bell.

Yellowknifer contacted management for both owners of the mall to get their side of the story.

Yellowknife Inn manager, Scott Smicer, who manages the upper level of the mall owned by Royal Trust, said the company's management works together with its tenants to address their concerns, but they can only achieve so much without help from the city and territorial government.

"Our philosophy is we're going to be there to help you out, but we're not going to be the leaders," said Smicer.

He argued that Bell's comments were unfair given how many businesses are closing up downtown in general.

"For me, him picking on the mall when you have so many other shops closing down, is not necessarily fair."

He pointed out the company's management approached Bell's real estate company Century 21 in January to ask if he would be willing to help fill some of the vacant shops in the mall.

"We approached Adrian because he has a selling background, obviously being with Century 21. Also we thought with him being a tenant, he would have some unique insight into how we could go about improving the mall."

According to Smicer, neither Bell nor Smicer could come to an agreement on the issue. "Unfortunately talks fell through."

Bell, who used to own a pizza parlour and coffee shop in the mall, said while Royal Trust approached him, he decided to break talks off because of the potential conflict of interest.

"The bottom line is that talks broke off because there was conflict," said Bell, pointing out that he already has a commercial client at the Centre Ice Mall in Frame Lake South, and that, as a city councillor, downtown revitalization was at the top of the agenda.

"Given the importance of that area it would have put in me in conflict as a city councillor as well," said Bell.

He said they are just as frustrated as anyone else with the problems faced by businesses downtown.

"We pay taxes as well and we feel that the downtown issues have not been resolved at all," he said.

Smicer said while mall ownership is doing its best to cope with issues such as loitering, the city and GNWT isn't doing enough to combat the social issues in the downtown area."

He also insisted Royal Host is planning to fix the concrete bench issue.

"We're going to do some flower pots and some other nice stuff out there," said Smicer.

He said Royal Host is getting its own in-house security instead of the private firm it employs now.

"We're going in-house, because that way we have better control over what happens as far as security guards are concerned," said Smicer

Yellowknifer spoke with management from Huntingdon Capital Corp., who told Yellowknifer to speak with the president of the company, Zachary George. He did not return phone calls by press time.

McHugh said representatives of Huntingdon Capital Corp, which owns the part of the mall leased by The Source, do fly up from time to time to consult with their tenants. "They asked if there are problems or if there are things that they can fix."

"I don't think anyone has been dishonest about that," said McHugh. "It's just that when people come up from another place, they're not from here, they don't see how it is, they're not dealing with the situation."

"They don't really know how to solve the problem, they just kind of put a Band-Aid on it - it's a temporary solution if that."

Royal Host owns 19 buildings and hotels in various communities throughout Canada; Huntingdon owns seven retail properties, mostly in Manitoba.

Bell said the building's owners have demonstrated they are unwilling to take responsibility for the state of the mall. With the city moving ahead on other projects, such as revitalization on 50 Street across from the mall's boarded up south entrance, he said the city cannot afford to put any more resources toward the mall without engaging the two owners in a discussion.

"Right now they are getting a free ride," he said, adding the onus for fixing the mall is not on the city, the tenants, or the shoppers, but the owners.

"Placing responsibility where it belongs is the best thing we can do."

He would like to see the city try and mediate between the two owners, to try and get them to come to up with solution to fix the mall. If they cannot come to an agreement on how to solve the problems with the mall, he said they should consider selling it to someone who will.

McHugh said while she would welcome any measure that would help improve the mall, she remains skeptical. She said management at The Source, like many stores before it in now half-empty mall, are anxious to get out.

"I don't really know if there is action drastic enough that could really save this place," said McHugh.

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