(時代坊, in
Richmond, British Columbia . It is located on Hazelbridge Way, bordered by Cambie Road to the north. It primarily serves the
Asian-Canadian population but is striving towards an appeal to Western customers as well. It was named after the famous
Aberdeen Harbour of
Hong Kong . Aberdeen Centre is also in the process of constructing a condominium complex attached to the mall itself.
The original Aberdeen Centre (香港仔中心, Mandarin: xiang gang zi zhong xin) was built in 1989 and was one of the first Asian malls in Richmond. It contained about 50 to 75 stores, including a
Bowling Alley and a movie theatre that showed
Chinese films. As new Asian malls such as
Yaohan Centre and
President's Plaza opened, it was soon apparent that the original Aberdeen was too small to compete. It was demolished in 2001, and it was rebuilt for approximately $130 million CDN. Architect
Bing Thom was hired to design the building.
The current Aberdeen Centre, opened in 2003, is about three times the original mall's size and has around 100 stores, making it one of the largest malls in Richmond. Its primary anchor store is
Daiso ; this is the company's first store outside of Asia. Other notable stores include
The BMW Store ,
Starbucks Coffee and
HSBC . There are also a notable number of Chinese restaurants located on its upper floors. There is also a small indoor musical fountain at the centre of the mall that performs shows every 30 minutes (similar to the one in front of
Ballagio Hotel in
Las Vegas ).
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Public transit buses, serviced by
TransLink , have connections to the mall, with additional routes to downtown
Vancouver and
New Westminster . It is also served by the
98 B-Line , a bus rapid transit line to
Vancouver International Airport and downtown Vancouver; the Aberdeen Centre stop is called Aberdeen.
Tha mall is owned by the
Fairchild Group , a company that also owns and operates many of the
Chinese-language television channels and radio stations in
Vancouver ,
Calgary and
Toronto .
- On February 9th, 2006, a knife battle between four men occurred in the upper food court area of the mall. One man was fatally stabbed in the heart and died at the scene. Another was seriously injured, suffering a knife wound at the back. The two other men fled the scene amid horrified shoppers. It was the first homicide of the year for the City of Richmond . {Link without Title}
