Uptown — Attraction in Saanich

Great selection of stores, very attractive, beautifully done. While there is loads of parking in the underground parkade, the surface parking amongst the shops is constantly full. This is frustrating for those who just came to dash into a shop quickly - including coffee shops/cafés, and similar.

While there is presumably the regulation amount of disabled accessible parking - and generously sized, with curb cuts, etc - I've found the surface such spots to be consistently filled, and parking would require utilizing the underground lots. While this is perfectly fine for longer visits, it's quite frustrating for short stops where the distance required to travel to and from the underground makes it not seem worth the trouble, or simply too much to handle physically, depending on the person's disability...

It's wonderful if you can take public transportation here, btw! They're certainly making that easy with stops all around the perimeter of the centre! But for those who need a personal vehicle due to health/ability, that might not be an option, and I wanted to mention that as it's not often discussed.

One could probably say this about many shopping centres, however the unique layout of these village-style shopping centres really highlights the parking issue for folks with disabilities. A mall like Hillside has multiple entrances, each with generous accessible parking, to choose from, for example.

Solution? Unsure. Perhaps time limiting (some?) surface spots for quicker trips, though this opens up monitoring, and the frustration of accidentally taking a bit too long and receiving a ticket. Hard to say. But I'd advise people needing accessible parking to visit the underground, perhaps near the elevator by Walmart, and coming up there as the elevator opens to the courtyard and may be the easiest route.

Definitely worth a visit, plan for parking where easiest but farther away.

Shops: 4-5 * Parking: 2-3...

Very poorly designed mall. Parked what appeared to be a few metres from Shoppers Drug Mart on Google Maps. Partner walked out of the underground parking but there was no ground level access. Someone was screaming, sounded like a woman in distress, but turned out to be a teenage boy. She didnt feel safe so came back to get me to walk with her. Checked Google Maps and it said it was a 6 minute drive to Shoppers which was metres away but on a higher level. Something as simple as navigating escalators and elevators to an upper level was instead confusing, there are no labels on the floors in the elevator. Apparently we were going from G to 4. Shoppers didnt have what we neeed and reccomended going across the street to Pharmasave. My daughter needed to use a bathroom so we went to the library, again nothing on the ground floor and have to go up a floor. There were 4 people in line. A librarian came over to check the bathroom while we were waiting, seemingly to see if someone was shooting up in there. We decided to leave. The pedestrian and vehicle traffic was chaotic within the mall with people laying on their horns, again no clear signage. When we did get back to the streets the traffic made it impossible to get across to Pharmasave. There was one fire truck parked, who seemed to be there for paramedic reasons. Then another came with it's sirens on. The highlight of our visit was a conversation with locals in the elevator who said every year there are 911 calls from people stuck in the mall who cant figure out how to get out. Wow! Impressively chaotic bad design. This mall most have a shelf of worst design trophies somewhere, but good...

While there is a good selection of stores at the Uptown Mall, I really, really, don’t like shopping there.

Today, for example, my daughter and I parked the car underground (parking spots weren’t available at ground level) and then put her 6 1/2 month old baby in the stroller. As we went to the elevator, we found it was (still) out of service. Two servicemen had just placed a barricade at the elevator doors and left on the escalator, leaving no notice whatsoever as to where another elevator could be found.

If you haven’t been to this underground parking garage it is very large and expansive. There were stairs and an escalator nearby, but for a baby in a stroller, or someone using a wheelchair, or incapable of navigating stairs or even an escalator, you are left with little choice, or any sort of direction as to where another elevator can be found.

We ended up walking up the traffic lane, then up another traffic lane to the shops. We are both able-bodied, so it was manageable for us, but think about those who are not able to get around easily.

Uptown is sprawling and there are lots of stores everywhere. We went into a couple of very nice shops and had a delicious lunch at the Crust Bakery, but that was it. Trying to get to different levels in this mall is a pain. Even one of the sales associates in one of the shops said it’s been ridiculous how many times the elevator has been out of service.

I avoid this mall at all costs, preferring Mayfair and Hillside and downtown. Whatever company manages this mall needs to do something about that elevator for those who have...