Heavy traffic expected for mega-mall opening

The RCMP are setting up a mobile command post and adding a dozen officers in anticipation of more than 30,000 vehicles heading to Wednesday's grand opening of a mega-mall north of Calgary.

The CrossIron Mills centre, with more than a million square feet of shopping and space for 200 stores, opens on Wednesday morning in Balzac.

The mall and police are bracing for the increased traffic by asking visitors to use alternate routes to Highway 2:

• Country Hills Boulevard East, out of the city to Conrich Road and then across to the mall on Township Road 262.
• Stoney Trail, up Centre Street to Township Road 262.

Mall officials expect 70,000 shopperson opening day,and as many as 90,000 onthe first Saturday. The mall has 6,300 parking spaces.

Extra RCMP officers at the mall's expense will be helping direct traffic off the single exit ramp to the mall as well as dealing with any security issues that arise.

Michael Martel, who works at ZyTech Building Systems, located on the east side of Exit 566 off Highway 2, said the company's supply trucks, customers and staff are already having a hard time with traffic from the mall's construction, and he's afraid the congestion will only get worse.

'If you want to come and see the event, then you're going to have to be prepared to wait with the crowds.' Ted McCauley,protective services manager for Rocky View

Ted McCauley, manager of protective services for the Municipal District of Rocky View, said everyone needs to be patient on the road.

"This is not a hospital, it's a shopping mall. If you want to come and see the event, then you're going to have to be prepared to wait with the crowds."

A second exit ramp will begin construction in the next few months and will be paid for by the mall'sdeveloper.

"The infrastructure is going to improve butI would have to say that presently it is inadequate," admitted McCauley. "So look for the signage.A lot of good work has gone into trying to plan what we have, but as somebody says, you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear sometimes and it will be a challenge."

There is currently no public transit that reaches the Balzac mall.

Shoppers will flock to new mall

A business professor predicts the shopping centre will attract plenty of customers, despite the economic slump.

The mall might have a harder time than it would have two years ago, but the shoppers will come, predicts Lynne Ricker of the Haskayne School of Business at the University of Calgary.

"I think the curiosity factor is big and I think the stores that they have will attract a lot of consumers," she said. "I think when you build a mall like this, you're not looking for necessarily making profit only in the first couple of months; obviously it's a long-term project."

The mall will also attract tourists, she said.

"We only have to look north to the West Edmonton Mall to realize that malls are a destination a lot of times for tourists," said Ricker.

Nicolle Montague of Regina said she shops at Calgary stores that aren't available at home.

"It's all about the deals, and the large scale of the mall. I think this seemed to offer something new and different that we hadn't done before, so we thought we'd try it out."

Developer Ivanhoe Cambridge is investing$495 million in the mall the first indoor shopping centre built in Alberta in the last 20 years.