Gloucester Centre — Attraction in Ottawa

Why they keep the gate the entrance of the Walmart and the rest of the mall I don't know. The wood panel and tile aesthetic accentuates the chilling despair that creeps into your bones like a childhood sickness you never quite recovered from. A hot blast of air attempts to warm your insides upon entering, but you will never be warm here. The chill is from a scar caused by neglect, not from a purposeful harm but from stagnation. The colors, layout, architecture, the general feeling has worn away, dulling the senses. This place is a testament to an aesthetic of persistence. How simply existing, serving a purpose and a function just well enough, justifies its continuation without a need for a replacement. The utility filling a need so well to not call for change. I imagine this is how civilizations collapse. Buildings perfected to meet a need, hailed as the solution that all the problems that previous buildings failed to solve. From what everyone can tell, it worked. There is no lack of want in utility or function. Finally, there are no more problems. No need for innovation, no need to change, no need for investment. The great minds of the time along with the technology of the era have succeeded. Their work is done. They can finally retire from a life of turmoil. As solvers of problems they can be content as their solution will fill their role long after they are gone. And so it stands. Monument to their creators. Long after their creators are gone, their wisdom has been made physical. Their knowledge structuralized into being through their own devising. Soon after their memory fades, so too does the knowledge of the problems they were trying to solve. Unbeaten by the wages of time, eventually no mind is given to why the solution works or why it works so well. Like the dragons of a bygone era, we thank the dragon slayers that we know not how to defend against a dragons attack. Or praise the witches which banished all the demons. Although persecuted and killed by those they protected from the demons, they may be contented in knowing that the crimes of their accusers pale in the black arts required to slay demons. No one will have to cast the spells that caused the casters more harm than any mortal beings could. But what the great minds failed to realize is that they did not find solve the grand problems of their time. In their hubris they failed to see that they had not solved all the problems that those previously had failed to solve. Sometimes in their tenure, change had ceceased. They were not the bringers of the end to a need for innovation, but victims of it. The stagnation was upon them. Their solution was but an implicit acceptance that their light had gone off. Their creation not a testimate to their brilliance but a marker to signify the end of an era. Although they may not have understood it, their creation was a bookend to an era that they failed to understand and they failed to continue. With this their monument stands. A symbol misunderstood in its creation and misunderstood in its time. As a testimate to a failure it stands as a mockery. An inanimate joke that stands frozen in time, caught mid laugh with it's mouth wide open, drooling like an brain damaged invalid, unable to communicate the punchline to an audience unaware that they are the joke. As the knowledge of the past subsides, so too does hope. Unable to resolve the disparity in the meaning and understanding of the symbol, meaning becomes lost and understanding becomes singular. Without contradiction the understanding becomes the meaning, however false it may be, and the way back becomes lost. Stagnation is its own form of decay. Without change, decay takes place in plain sight. The rot is hidden since we assume that a form's longevity is a sign of its strength but its longevity is a sign that we have been deceived into believing it is how things are supposed to be. It is a predator, eating us alive, taking comfort in symbols that foretold our demise. Still we read the symbols to mean everything is fine.

I haven't tried any...

It's never been a very useful mall, but we still would come here to give our toddler a quiet place to walk around. After a recent visit, however, we likely will avoid.

Cons: --No direct access to mall from LRT --Mall to transit elevator is tiny --All the indoor doors to stores that also have an outdoor entry are always locked when we go (potentially always?) With mobility disability and a young child it's just not convenient to go out and around. I do empathize if it's to reduce theft, but I basically never spend money at these retailers because of this reason. That's 30-40 dollars I never spend per visit at Rexall or Walmart. -- The upstairs balcony is closed to the general public. Went there to enjoy the view and for privacy to breastfeed and was told by security to leave because it's closed. No signs, just a fear we might steal something from where??? Weird boring offices? Bizarre! Especially annoying after spending a bunch of money at food court with kid. If you can't hang out at the mall then what is the point?

As others have said, it's time to call the bulldozers and do something better with this...

Often extremely busy, often prices are way to expensive, sales are often not that great, parking is almost always very busy, handicap prk is often inadequate in amounts and closeness, people are often in a rush in prk lot and unpleasantly rude do to them being in a rush during the week to get home. I usually avoid going there unless i find deep discounts in their flyers and even then .. I've often had to point out for price corrections and consumer price protection law etc. To get a mis scanned item for free or $10 off as per the law for their price scan errors and they eventually do honor the law , unlike the metro in Blackburn that actually violate the law and hold their ground using all sorts of excuses to not give the item for free or take $10 off with mispriced miscanned items .. anyow Loblaws i call low blahs for low bla bla bla...