Centre Laval


Centre Laval is a shopping mall located in the Chomedey district of Laval, Quebec, Canada, at the corner of Saint-Martin West and Le Corbusier boulevard. It is a 10-minute walk from the Montmorency metro station in nearby Laval-des-Rapides. Centre Laval is paired with Quartier Laval, a power centre across the street owned by the same company, with which it makes a shopping complex called DUO.
Though located only away from the bigger and more popular Carrefour Laval, Centre Laval is a large shopping mall in its own right with nearly of retail space. It has 130 shops, services and department stores, including anchors Hudson's Bay, Marshall's/HomeSense, The Brick, Best Buy, Staples, Lee Valley, and Sportium. Other tenants of importance include Sports Experts, Mark's and Ares. There is also a branch of the Bank of Montreal.

History

Centre Laval was Laval's first modern, enclosed shopping mall. Until then the block-long St Martin strip mall built in 1956 by Ivanhoe had been the largest. Centre Laval began in 1968 with 50 stores and anchored by Famous Players theatre, Woolco and Steinberg's. A mall expansion was supposed to be anchored by Morgan. But by the time the expansion was completed, the Morgan chain had been renamed to The Bay and the store at Centre Laval inaugurated on August 17, 1972 under the new banner. Centre Laval had two more expansions before reaching its current size in 1988.
The Woolco store became a Walmart when the company purchased Woolco Canada in 1994 to establish a Canadian presence. Staples Canada acquired the lease of the defunct office supply chain Club Biz and opened its Centre Laval store on June 1, 1996. Club Biz, which was founded in 1991 by executives of Steinberg's, had taken over in 1993 the space at Centre Laval of the defunct supermarket following the latter's closing in 1992.
Walmart left Centre Laval in November 2012 to relocate as a Walmart Supercentre on the site formerly occupied by Centre 2000. Walmart's location at Centre Laval was demolished to allow a Target store on its emplacement from 2013 to 2015. As of September 2017, part of that space is now occupied by a Sportium sport equipment store.
In 2018 more space is being occupied by Avril Supermarché Santé, Marshalls and HomeSense.
Lee Valley opened its first store in the province on October 3, 2018.
On September 26, 2019, Centre Laval merged with its sister shopping centre Quartier Laval, a power centre located the other side of the street that is also owned by Cominar. The combined property is called DUO and regroups the tenants of both shopping centres. A website was launched for the new complex whose presence is expected to gradually rise on social media. Quartier Laval was built in 2008 and is currently anchored by Winners, Indigo and the headquarters of Nordia Inc.

Ownership

In April 2007, Homburg Invest Inc acquired Alexis Nihon REIT and thereby officially took ownership of the shopping centre. Centre Laval was transferred to Homburg Canada REIT in 2009 which eventually changed to Canmarc Real Estate Investment Trust in September 2011.
Since March 2012, Centre Laval is owned and managed by Cominar following its acquisition of Canmarc.