The Centre on Barton — Attraction in Hamilton

I have to be honest it's hard to rate a large collection of stores and to ignore rating them, but I accept the challenge! I do feel that I am unable to emphasize that this review is not about any singular store enough. So this review will be about The Centre rather than the commercial residents of the location.

It has to be said that I it really shows the age of the layout, and having took the step into the end of the idea of a singular building housing many smaller businesses inside. The problems begin with the awkward positioning of buildings that began in a pleasant spacious layout. From there it feels strongly as though each new design was made as a bandage. Now they are reclaiming areas for construction, the layout gets worse every single time they have broken earth since.

The food court idea was novel but the draw of a food court is that you walked around the mall and often found the food court the same way those loops of fruit. The new design left it a crammed space normally taken by two restaurants, I don't know how well the commercial residents enjoy the level of business. Maybe I am wrong? Even still it shows us the way the modern mall has evolved and it has the scars to prove it.

In a perfect world they could clear the whole thing. Take the time to make a new layout designed to handle growth. Then after they have a good idea of how they are going to handle this new format. That being said, if anyone knows where I can enjoy a perfect world? You need to share with the rest of us.

Be well, and I thank you for taking the time to...

Where to start with this place... I often feel like Frodo Baggins bringing the ring to Mordor when I’m about to shop here on foot. So far to walk, so many different environments, a fast changing and windswept climate, and a relentless cavalry of crossovers and 90’s beaters charging you from every angle.

Sure, it has everything you need, but by the time you return home with your fistfuls of big box store purchases, you will be physically and emotionally depleted. Sidewalks end and appear out of nowhere. And they tend to disappear right before the largest 4 way stops, thus forcing old ladies with their walkers to ponderously shuffle through a cyclone of cars. Even walking the sidewalk along Barton is taking your life into your hands. I’ve almost been killed twice by a car turning from Barton into the plaza without looking. And I am an exceptionally large, visible person.

The lot is so vast that you will often encounter multiple weather types on a single voyage from Canadian tire to Walmart. I once got snowed on, rained on, and then blasted with sunshine in a single trek. The wind is accelerated through the design of the buildings and parking lot. It seems that no matter what direction you walk, you are getting pummelled in the face with wind.

This “mall” is a harsh, unrelenting place where one could easily die of exposure, Giant Tiger bags in hand. It’s probably how the seagulls and pigeons here are so freakishly large and plentiful. I’m sure they enjoy a defeated shopper or...

Micheal's, Dollarama, PetSmart obviously all let me bring in my semi-crazed dog every time I've been in, which is too notch 👌

Micheal's and PetSmart all have accessible and dog-friendly (in terms of space to move around in anyway) public bathrooms, which I call superb 👌👌

The washrooms in PetSmart are private, single-user washrooms, which makes them the best of the bunch, and suprise surprise, my dog fully agrees! 😲

Just kidding, no one is surprised, Nemoy' internal biases are demonstrably clear to everyone but himself. Poor little unenlightened troglodyte that he is. It's really not his fault though, the system has to be held accountable for it's deficits sooner or later. I mean, what degree of apathetic corruption must be positively flourishing when it allows young, underprivileged canines to fall so thoroughly through the cracks, and at such alarming rates.

He can't even read, for God's sake!! And I'm to believe there was no one who noticed, in all those years, within all those institutions? Preposterous. No one doing their bloody jobs, now that I have no trouble believing whatsoever!

Also, the parking lot is a windswept hellscape when it's empty in the winter. Waayyyy too many wannabe cops, not nearly enough gaping holes cut into the fence seperating the back lane from the train track. Not...