The Economics of B.C. Malls
The mall is the cornerstone of many small B.C. communities. But are they really a net positive for the local economy?
In the interest of full disclosure: I’ve never liked malls.
As far as I’m concerned, they’re all the same: stale air, contrived architecture and a barrage of overpriced storefronts. When I lived in east Van or Montreal or Toronto, nothing gave me more pleasure than hopping on my bike and doing all the shopping I needed out of quirky little stores that have been in families for generations.
Which is why, when I moved to Gibsons on the Sunshine Coast four years ago, I was shocked to find out I didn’t have a choice. A trip to Sunnycrest Mall in Upper Gibsons is unavoidable here. Liquor store selection? Head to the mall. Replacing your ink cartridge? Mall. Picking up a package? Mall, mall, mall.
It bugged me that I couldn’t hop on my bike and pick up what I needed on our quaint little main street in Lower Gibsons, an 80-year-old two-block stretch along the waterfront, featuring a wharf, gift shops/galleries, convenience stores and restaurants. Instead, I had to get in my car and trek a kilometre up the hill to Upper Gibsons (downtown’s busy younger brother), parking between an idling truck and a Hummer to shop at London Drugs, Supervalu, even Hallmark – week in, week out.
When I started to notice the heavy turnover of local businesses in the mall and found out their rents were somewhere between $15 and $25 a square foot, every fibre in my body began to itch for answers. How did we get here, I wanted to know. Is the typical small-town mall – with seven or eight corporate anchors (Starbucks, BC Liquor Store, RBC, London Drugs, Reitmans, CIBC, the Bargain Shop and Athletes World, in our case), a handful of franchises and a few local stalwarts – really the only model that’s working these days? On a recent trip through the Okanagan, all I saw was one depleted main street after another; the malls, on the other hand, were hopping.
Most small-town folk – even myself on a generous day – will begrudge our local mall this: it’s not great to look at, but it keeps our economy humming. The corporate chains and franchises bring more jobs into town and, because they’re large outfits with economies of scale, they can provide us with more selection at lower prices.
But the journalist in me wasn’t so sure: does the local mall – dominated in large part by corporate anchors and franchises – have a net positive benefit for the local economy? Sure, it might provide jobs, more stuff and savings for locals, but what does it take away? Even if I leave out those community intangibles that we lose at the mall – chatting with the owner at the till, less car traffic, local colour and flavour – are we losing our money too?
To find out, I meet up with Michael McLaughlin, a middle-aged gumboot-wearing small-business consultant and the local economic development officer. He doesn’t buy my cynicism.
“This is a common misconception: that malls suck money out of the local economy. You need to examine that statement,” he tells me. “Imagine our town without a mall.”
McLaughlin, a thoughtful part-time farmer hired by the Town of Gibsons to head up an economic development initiative for the Sunshine Coast called BCI (Best Coast Initiatives), pauses and considers his next statement. “Most small businesses fail because they’re poorly run.”
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