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Designed
by internationally acclaimed architect Bing
Thom, the [new] Aberdeen Retail Development is the result of an
intense three-year effort to rethink the role of retail mall in urban
settings and to investigate its ability to revitalize suburban centres. The
result is a three-storey development that extends the traffic patterns of
existing urban street grid, linking City streets, enhancing street-oriented
pedestrian circulation, and re-enforcing this movement though a dynamic
circulation system within the shopping mall
The [previous] Aberdeen Mall enjoyed
a number of years of success as an Asian-oriented retail mall in this
location. As the years passed, the cultural demographic of the region
changed. This factor combined with the increase of competitive pressure
prompted Bing Thom Architects and the Developer, Fairchild Developments, to
take on a bold new vision: To reposition the existing mall as an
international retail development, and to use this development to transform a
suburban automobile-oriented area into an urban pedestrian-oriented retail
district.
The proposal leverages the existing
City infrastructure and traffic patterns, yet establishes a clear movement
toward densification and street-oriented retail. The ground floor retail
units open directly on to the new adjacent City streets, complete with a
unique sidewalk treatment and street trees to identify the retail precinct.
The above grade retail units are veiled behind a dynamic façade of
shimmering fritted glass. The intent is to create a retail development that
acts as a large glass sculpture, creating a dynamic composition through a
play of transparency, translucency and solid.
- Architect Bing
Thom
  
The new $135-million state-of-the-art, 380,000-square-foot Aberdeen Centre
shopping mall in Richmond
Starbucks Corp. will shut down its
Aberdeen Centre location in Richmond, B.C., on Wednesday, the company's
first-ever closing in Canada.
The coffee retailer said the decision to
close was caused by current economic conditions and because the location
itself was under-performing.
Some employees at the Richmond location
said they were given just five days' notice about the pending shutdown.
Starbucks has announced it plans on
closing 100 coffee shops outside of the U.S., but it has so far not revealed
how many more outlets in B.C. will be shuttered.
Starbucks has 365 locations in the
province. - 2009
March 30 CANADA.com
East meets West at Aberdeen
The new Richmond mall will include several new-to-Vancouver retailers from
Asia
The traditional lion dance that will inaugurate
Richmond's all-new Aberdeen Centre next Saturday is likely the most
"Chinatown" thing you'll probably see in this spanking-new,
high-tech retail palace.
Fairchild Media chief and mall developer Thomas
Fung is eager to escape the visual clichés--as well as the limited
marketing potential--of both the "Old Chinatown" of Vancouver's
Pender Street, and the "New Chinatown" flanking Richmond's No. 3
Road, just outside the doors of the $100-million first phase of his mall.
Accordingly, his commercial tenant legal agreements oblige Aberdeen
merchants to ban permanent Chinese-language signs, inside and out.
Fung travelled the world for two years lining up
new-to-North-America retailers. These include not only the wildly popular
Daiso--the $2-a-shot retailer that he describes as "The Wal-Mart of
Japan," but also "HanZone, Korea's most prestigious department
store, plus what you might call the 'Ikea of Thailand.' "
Fung steered the latter chain into two separate
Aberdeen Mall locations to showcase their Bangkok-built bargain-priced
furniture, one outlet featuring Western-style items, the other
"contemporary Asian" in look.
Hey, you Vancouver-area retailers of any ethnicity
who still pile the same old, predictably ratty merchandise to the rafters:
Come see the future at the new Aberdeen Centre.
While Fung assembled the merchants he wanted,
engaging and energetic mall manager Danny Leung worked with architects and
municipal officials, securing a needed Richmond road re-alignment, and the
Lower Mainland's first public art credit for an architectural feature. This
is the stunning custom coloured glass randomly arrayed over the mall's
ever-curving walls, a range of translucent and opaque panels that look
equally gem-like by day or by night, while making a huge building appear
livelier and more human in scale. Architect Bing Thom had pioneered this
architectural device -- admittedly in earth tones, not the incandescent
primary hues used here -- in his Surrey Central City, reviewed in last
week's column.
Fung and Leung have even quietly suggested that
mall merchants retain an English speaker on every shift, a
"hands-across-the border" breakthrough for this area of Richmond.
In Fung's previous Aberdeen Mall here -- totally
demolished to make way for Bing Thom's latest invigoration of our visually
under-achieving suburbs -- the media baron and developer had observed us
"gwai lo" taking quick first looks around, then retreating to the
known retail fixes of Lansdowne Mall nearby, never to return.
A few of us hearty non-Chinese Asia hands would
come in for a bowl of congee at the old Aberdeen's high-value, high-variety
food court, but seldom visited other shops there, largely because we could
not read the signs or talk to merchants.
As well, Fung's new mall does away with the
bowling alley and cinema in the previous version, much to the dismay of
Richmond's bored youth. This Vancouver suburb leads the nation in three
regards: Canada's lowest-altitude community; its flattest municipality (no
wonder its kids are bored!); and the city with the highest ratio of
visible-minority citizens.
Fung even changed his mall's Chinese characters in
advertisements appearing in Vancouver's thriving Asian media to ideograms
that translate as "Timely and Trendy Place," while maintaining
"Aberdeen" for English-language use. By the way, Aberdeen refers
to one of Hong Kong's toniest neighbourhoods, not that small city of
scotch-swilling, golf-obsessed, cake-munching Caledonians.
Scion of one of Hong Kong's wealthiest families,
Thomas Fung first bought Fairchild Media in 1984, and has since
distinguished himself in two regards. Unlike Victor Li (who recently made an
offer for control of Air Canada) and so many other entrepreneurs of his
generation, Fung did not return to China after a Canadian stint, choosing
instead to build his businesses while based here, his sensitivity to
Vancouver's hybrid culture increasing all the while. With training in the
fine arts and photography, Fung combines the temperament of an artist with
the acumen of a corporate tycoon, to use a Chinese word.
We have many developer-collectors in Vancouver,
but I am aware of no other developer-artist. Aberdeen's shops were curated,
not leased. Fung is convinced his Aberdeen Mall is the template for a series
of similarly ambitious ventures around the continent. He hopes to succeed
with Aberdeen where rival Henderson Development's equally expensive,
similarly bi-cultural International Village sits almost empty at Pender and
Abbott.
Aberdeen Mall is more than Greater Vancouver's
most visually dramatic retail operation, but more important, it represents
the post-fusion culture now emerging here.
To illustrate this shift, a recent anecdote. A
senior journalist recently arrived here from Ontario mentioned this
newcomer's perception to me, as we drove around thinking about lunch: diners
in dim sum parlours and curry houses are so much more socially diverse here,
than in Toronto. "People eat widely outside their ethnic origin
here," he observed.
This is a pattern he saw much less often, even in
the north-of-Toronto Asian suburbs equivalents to our Richmond. Similarly,
when I asked my University of B.C. architecture students, one-third of them
had been to Canada's largest city, but over half to Bangkok, new hub of the
cheap student holiday.
Aberdeen Centre's architecture has gone beyond the
post-Chinatown clichés of scrolled cornices and mock-temple tilework to
something entirely more original and dynamic. It comes as no surprise that
the key design architect on Bing Thom's Aberdeen team is Chris Doray, whose
family history might well make him Vancouverite of the year. A highly
talented neo-modernist designer, Doray is an Ismaili Muslim raised in
Singapore who studied architecture in London. Over dim sum, Bing Thom
recently told me his 20 staff speak 18 different languages.
Much like the Aberdeen mall itself, this diversity
is the future of our city. My full architectural review will follow in July,
after retailers all move in, and assorted Liberal politicos cut ribbons.
- Trevor Boddy is The
Vancouver Sun's architecture critic and civic columnist. Vancouver
Sun
29 Feb 2004
Richmond's new $135-million Aberdeen Centre mall
opened Friday to drumrolls and bursts from a Las Vegas-like musical water
foundation.
Minutes later, hundreds of customers crammed into
the centre's anchor retail outlet, the 26,900-square-foot Daiso store
offering more than 40,000 items for sale at the uniform price of $2.
Mall developer and owner Thomas Fung, CEO of the
Vancouver-based Fairchild Group, said his new 380,000-square-foot facility
-- triple the size of the original one he had demolished -- is designed to
house more than 250 stores from around the world by the time it is fully
opened next summer.
"This is not a conventional mall with the
same tenants you'll find at the average North American shopping
centre," Fung said.
"We searched the world for the best, most
successful retailers in home, lifestyle, food and fashion, and brought them
together under one roof.
"The majority of the retailers are making
their North American debuts."
So far, the new mall is about 75 per cent leased,
Fung said.
International retailers include Flash Living
Design, Heroic Rendezvous, Moiselle, Imaroon, Moi and Ozone, while local
businesses include HSBC Bank Canada, OSIM, Tropica Restaurant Group, Cell
City, St. Germain Bakery and Fishermen's Terrace Seafood Restaurant.
Japanese tycoon Hirotake Yano, CEO of Daiso-Sangyo Co., has opened the first
Daiso two-dollar store outside Asia in the Aberdeen Centre
Credit: Bill Keay, Vancouver
Sun
The Daiso store is a joint venture between
Fairchild and Japanese-based Daiso-Sangyo Co., owned by tycoon Hirotake
Yano, who has more than 2,500 outlets in Asia and plans future expansion to
other parts of Canada and the United States.
The new Aberdeen mall, at Hazelbridge and Cambie,
also features an 800-seat international food court, Internet access, video
streaming and an entertainment district.
A Science World exhibition and educational centre
is scheduled to open early next year.
Designed by noted Vancouver architect Bing Thom,
the new three-storey Aberdeen Centre features more than 2,300 panels of
glass that wrap around the building.
"Aberdeen is highly accessible and
visible," Thom said.
"The centre itself will emit a soft glow at
night-time due to the coloured glass panels.
"We see it as an 'urban lantern' and possibly
the biggest piece of public art in the Greater Vancouver area."
- Wyng Chow Vancouver
Sun 13 Dec 2003
Business in Vancouver photo
Richmond's new $130-million Aberdeen Centre mall just keeps on growing
Property tycoon Thomas Fung plans to have 280
retail stores opened at his new Aberdeen
Centre mall by Christmas, even though he keeps adding to his
$130-million project.
"In today's economic climate, you need to
offer character and uniqueness to draw customers in," Fung said
Thursday.
"That's why I spend so much time travelling
the world to bring in the right multicultural tenant mix."
The chairman and CEO of Fairchild Group, the
Vancouver-based real estate and media conglomerate, also announced plans to
develop a new eight-storey, 128,000-square-foot, 150-room hotel adjacent to
the new 380,000-square-foot Aberdeen mall in Richmond.
In the atrium of the three-storey facility, he is
spending $3 million to install a 14-metre long, indoor illuminated water
fountain that will allow water modules to move or "dance" to
sounds or music, producing three-dimensional shows.
Science World has signed an agreement to install
and program up to 10 interactive exhibits throughout the mall, aimed at
stimulating the public's interest and curiosity in science and technology.
The shopping centre at Hazelbridge Way and Cambie
Road will also feature public art.
Meanwhile, Fung continues to travel extensively,
wooing tenants to fill the mall that is scheduled for completion by
December. Famed architect Bing Thom's design calls for extensive use of
glass to give the project a brighter and more transparent look.
For his part, all of Fung's efforts are designed
to give his new mall much more of an international -- and less Asian --
flavour, which he considers vital to success, including turning it into a
B.C. tourist attraction.
"We're working on signing tenants from Europe
and Asia, brand new retailers who will use our location as a springboard to
expand to other parts of North America," he said.
As an extra incentive, Fairchild has lined up a
Los Angeles-based consulting firm to help Aberdeen Centre tenants crack the
U.S. market.
While Fung declined to identify some of the major
tenants who are negotiating lease agreements (citing competitive reasons) he
described several of them as famous European or Asian companies making their
first venture into B.C.
Among them are a "high-end"
European-style furniture store taking more than 10,000 square feet of space,
while an Oriental gift shop selling "unique" items is looking at
another 10,000 square feet, he said.
"If they're successful, they can franchise
out."
Fung envisions finding four to six tenants to open
medium-sized restaurants, each in the range of 3,500 to 4,500 square feet.
The third floor of the mall will offer a 25,000-square-foot, 800-seat food
court with wireless Internet access for customers.
"Using food outlets as anchor tenants is the
trend in all the successful malls in Asia," Fung said.
Aberdeen's retail space is currently about
60-per-cent pre-leased. HSBC Bank Canada will be among the new major
tenants, while Cathay Pacific Airways is making arrangements with other
prospective retailers to implement a new "Air Miles" program.
Fung disclosed that he is also continuing
negotiations with several luxury automobile dealerships.
Several years ago, Fung originally intended to
spend $60 million renovating and expanding his then-existing
116,600-square-foot mall, which he opened in 1990, but decided instead to
develop a new centre, tripling the size of the old one.
The new premises will include four levels of
parking for 1,500 vehicles, compared to the previous 450 at the
now-demolished mall.
Despite a glut of retail space in Richmond, where
there are dozens of Asian-style strip malls, Fung is confident he will
succeed by changing his tenant mix to offer "one-stop" shopping,
providing goods and services that are unavailable at other locations.
At Aberdeen, Fairchild chose to lease rather than
to strata-title the retail units so the company could retain control of the
types of businesses operating at the mall.
Fung expects his eventual tenant mix to be about
60-per-cent Asian and 40-per-cent mainstream.
"We want people to come to our mall not only
for shopping, but for the lifestyle," he said.
Among other previous commercial and
residential projects, Fung developed Parker Place mall and Fairchild Square,
both in Richmond, and Fairchild Court in Oakridge. His group also owns
Chinese-language radio and TV stations in Vancouver, Calgary and Toronto.
- Wyng Chow Vancouver
Sun
24 February 2003
The potential for a glut of space has
similarly not deterred Fairchild Group president and CEO Thomas Fung.
He's pumping $130 million into rebuilding
Richmond's Aberdeen
Centre and tripling its size to more than 380,000 square feet.
Vying for the mainstream high-end shopper
instead of restricting himself to the Asian market, Fung is confident his
mall will lease at rates comparable to levies charged at nearby Richmond
Centre -- a mall real estate experts termed "a very strong regional
centre."
Fung said the new Aberdeen Centre rates
will be double what they were at his original Aberdeen Centre. Fung added he
has lease commitments for 50 per cent of new Aberdeen Centre space.
Fung said his mall will succeed.
He added that its high-end tenant
mix and physical attractions like a musical water-fountain able to create
the image of "liquid fireworks," a snowboarding machine that will
cost $20 for a half-hour lesson and a projected ceiling similar to Ceasars
Palace's changing sky, will attract shoppers. -
Business in Vancouver
18-24 Feb 2003
The potential for a glut of space has similarly
not deterred Fairchild Group president and CEO Thomas
Fung.
He's pumping $130 million into rebuilding
Richmond's Aberdeen Centre and tripling its size to more than 380,000 square
feet.
Vying for the mainstream high-end shopper instead
of restricting himself to the Asian market, Fung is confident his mall will
lease at rates comparable to levies charged at nearby Richmond Centre
-- a mall real estate experts termed "a very strong regional
centre."
Fung said the new Aberdeen Centre rates will be
double what they were at his original Aberdeen Centre. Fung added he has
lease commitments for 50 per cent of new Aberdeen Centre space.
Fung said his mall will succeed.
He added that its high-end tenant mix and physical
attractions like a musical water-fountain able to create the image of
"liquid fireworks," a snowboarding machine that will cost $20 for
a half-hour lesson and a projected ceiling similar to Ceasars Palace's
changing sky, will attract shoppers. - Business
in Vancouver 18-24 Feb 2003
The original Aberdeen
Centre built by Thomas Fung represented exclusively by 
Aberdeen Centre Re-development Team:
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