Christmas Shopping at a Dead Mall: New Horizon Mall Calgary - Best Edmonton Mall 

It must be awkward trying not to make eye contact with hopeful shopkeepers as you pass them by.

Good for you for buying a few items from those stores. Give the owners a bit of hope.

It would be fun to pay a lease fee and then move in with my TV, fridge and easy chair. I’ll create the first “mall man cave.”

That's an odd design, all glass all around, not even any "back rooms" for the stores to keep stock etc. The building looks more like some kind of medical office building lol.

Man I don't know how you managed to push though the crowds!!

Open a pot store, and I promise you it will get packed.

This mall looks like Apple designed this mall, all the stupid glass

Great video.. love the fact that you actually supported the open stores as well.. just subscribed cuz of it.🙏

Hope the shops there still can survive 🙏

I think the mall looks so bland being white walls, white floors, and white ceiling. It doesn't feel inviting at all.

Went there today on boxing day. It was the saddest thing ever. Could improve if there was some music playing in the background... all we could hear were footsteps from the other people who couldn't find parking at Crossiron

"I grabbed some tea...it tastes like tea" XD dead

What I wouldn't give to be able to take my rollerskates in there...

A little shocked they actually put that many decorations up for Christmas, although even with them, it looks so bland.

Is it the set for a new Cube movie ? If the walls start moving run like hell.

We went there this past week. We got talking with one of the stores, she was telling us that in the beginning of the new year there is at least 50 new stores to open. We made this trip (We too, live in Edmonton) visit across the street. But we couldnt help ourselves with taking a walk through this mall. When I told my husband about this place, he I dont think believed me. He was just as amazed as I was.

This mall (or shopping centre as we call them in Australia lol) reminds me of an airport! or a hospital! Great video, hope you keep us updated 👍🏼

Instead of selling shops to small business owners as planned (unique condo style mall) the locations were snapped up by Asian investors. Now shop owners must rent, just as in any other mall, so why not rent from an already operational mall. Just as with the housing market, all that corrupt Chinese money is screwing things up.

What an eerie place... it's very contradictory with it's bright white walls, and glass entry ways, yet appears to one of the malls that is going through it's last days before complete shutdown. Is Calgary going through some growth spurt in the area this mall was chosen to be built in? Reminds me of an area in Winnipeg (2 years ago) where the only Cabella's was located. I had to take 2 buses to get to it from my hotel Downtown, this was more of an uncovered open mall with the few stores in this 20 acre spread opened. It was located in what appeared to be farmland, it was weird but in an interesting way. New Horizon mall seems to partake the feeling, as you mentioned, that perhaps you should not yet be walking around, I half expected security to come up and ask you to leave the site. The glass cube concept of the stores, is a little bizarre too, I guess we do it a little different here on the coast, where each store location is not a standard size or shape. Not slamming it it's just different than I have seen. The mall would be a great location for shooting some futuristic sci-fi movie, it does look modern. Any idea what it cost to build? EDIT: I just saw your previous video Cost $200 MIllion....

This is such a cool video. I just read an article on Calgary's business (actual name of the website) on the New Horizon mall. As of December 20th, the mall reports 49 stores have "opened" and 36 stores are set in the next 2 months. The article's actual focus is on the significant tax advantage Rocky view county gives versus being in Calgary proper. Which would explain why Amazon warehouse, Cross Iron and New Horizon likely chose to open up there. However, the article also talks about boardgames4you and their motivation of opening a physical store there, (spoiler alert: county's business-friendly environment ), and the New Department store's name...The Best Shop. There's not much written about it other then it's a Chinese department store. There's actually one in Richmond BC's Landsdowne Centre which at the time I didn't realize was a chain until reading the article. I was there in the summer. It reminded me of a Woolworth's (for those who are old enough to remember) or a smaller Zellers/Wal-mart without the fresh/frozen food items, and all made in China products. Anyway, keep up the great videos. The WEM videos are such a great trip down memory lane for me.

honestly the mall looks real scary empty

Wow, this mall is full of liminal space! Eerie and intriguing! Maybe not the ideal mood to draw in tons of new customers, but an adventure for curious shoppers like yourself! I look forward to your next update on this place!

Basic builders grade everything. Looks like a bunch of glass storage units.

BEST CHRISTMAS EVE PRESENT EVER! 2 vids in 1 week!

The Wren and stimpy clip immediately took me back to the 90s. I felt like a kid for 2 seconds again!! I sung that stupid song all the time

2:02 love that there are Oilers fans in Calgary!!

the mall does have a potential in terms of handling conventions. the white paint makes it a blank canvas and banners can stand out.

I’m old fashioned. I don’t do internet shopping. I need to see and touch the items I wanna buy. My daughter does (she orders Chinese craps online) and sometimes gets to returns them, too much headache

It's funny, I thought it looked like Pacific Mall. If New Horizon opens 8 more cell phone case stores, and 10 more perfume shops, plus adds 5 counterfeit movie stores and 2 dozen vape stores, then it will be Pacific Mall.

I hope things turn around for Alberta people are really struggling.

I’m heading back to Calgary soon so I might take a look at this mall. I honestly thought it was abandoned last time I was there lol

Its a hidden gem now . Totally different experience now

I walked through there about a week or so after it opened and I kept wondering when the zombies were going to run around the corner or the experiments being kept in the empty stores showing up. It felt so medical and sterile to me.

At least they can quickly convert it into a giant warehouse when the mall goes out of business.

I have seen this type of Mall... in Hong Kong. But those Malls are crammed with every type of shop and restaurants and packed full of people.

More people have now seen this than have ever been in the mall.

I kept thinking to myself "this looks so familiar", then you said it's based off of Pacific Mall and it clicked. Looks almost exactly like it

LOVE THIS CHANNEL

1:00 Seems that store space right in front of the escalator would be a prime store spot. It was the first thing I saw after the view peeked over the hill.

Went shopping there today and supported a few of the local businesses there. It was an enjoyable experience. Will go back to try Maddy’s. I hope it does survive and thrive.

It's very white, are you sure you weren't in heaven?

Nice to see it FINALLY has some stores

The problem is that they built that store right across the street from Cross Iron Mills. People don't want to waste their time going for a few store. With that said, I hope it grows as I find it quite sad to see it so empty. I drove by there the other day and was wondering what it was like on the inside. Thank you for your video.

In the last video I joked that this mall looked like a futuristic prison. But now looking at it, things are starting to take form but for how long? I just don’t see things completely taking off when there’s a more successful mall quite literally less than a couple miles away.

I visited yesterday out of curiosity after seeing this video, it was pretty empty, Zeeks is still there as well as some more food court locations. It was later on a Sunday so some of the stores were closed. Looks like they built an indoor play park which likely won't open for some time due to Covid. And still no anchor store. Its a strange experience for sure.

The people who opened stores in there are probably regretting it big time.

No wonder why the place looks so similar to Pacific mall, it was inspired by it. I used to go there all the time.

I honestly see this layout doing good in heavy asian area. When we were in Tokyo some shopping buildings alot of the floors had multiple small stores within a floor.

If this place is anything like Pacific Mall then that Lacoste Cologne is most likely fake.

What’s with the glass store fronts? Reminds me of a futuristic hospital for an outbreak of illness, a big ICU. Or a very fancy outlet mall

The mall is so soulless, why would you choose to shop here when you can go across the street to a much more interesting and vibrant mall. This place looks like an old warehouse someone has put a few glass boxes in.

That's just plain sad - what will happen if the only place to buy anything will be Amazon?

Those glass cubicles are strange.

This place is so aesthetically pleasing to me for some reason lol. The stores being transparent and being made of glass looks so sleek.

“I grabbed some tea. It tasted... like yea,”

be good for a horror movie...

Wouldn't it make a lot more sense to put all the shops together in one part of the mall and close off the rest?

Our Mall has never had this problem. I went there two weeks ago, there were only two spots that were closed, one had a sign that something would open there soon.

Hey, are you the guy from Zombieland? Your voice gives you away.

Well I went there today and talked to the board game store owner. He said the anchor tenants were going to be an Asian "Walmart" called The Best Shop and a T&T supermarket is supposedly coming according to its wikipedia. But construction had barely begun on the Best Shop and looked months away from opening. There was still the one restaurant in the food court with "Amazing Swarma" under construction. A lot of stores should have been open but were closed and had "please call 403-XXX-XXXX number if you need assistance" signs, so store owners arent even bothering showing up some days it appears. It was really awkward walking past store owners who were standing outside their shop and I feel most of the people in the mall were just there to look at this mockery of a mall. If there is a T&T opening there that could be the thing that propels the mall forward, but other than that, I dont see this place surviving the year.

I forgot this mall existed I might as well visit it again Thxs for reminding me of it

The problem I see is a lot of stores with very little space. This means that a lot of specialty stores need to come in that don't require a ton of inventory. That could present a problem in getting new stores let alone customers to come there. The stores you showed were cool but scant few would I spend money in especially given the fact that I have so many other option elsewhere. Fact is, the mall(as in malls in general) is dying a slow agonizing death. When you see brick and mortar icons like Sears, K-Mart, Toys R Us, etc biting the dust, you know brick and mortar retail is on life support.

people always seem to cook better when there is not a rush

Yeah I don’t know why they thought to build that-especially when Cross Iron was like right beside it

All of the units almost look way too small for most businesses to have any interest in them.

Cheers to those that actually opened up their store at an empty mall. This will get others to go at least try and revitalize this dead mall.

I never would of thought there was this mall...awesome vid though!

As a Calgarian living in Edmonton, I love your videos. Awesome content! You should definitely consider expanding the scope of your video topics because you're great at producing them but malls are very niche. Cheers!

*Warning: that phone case you bought will most likely break in about a month or less*

Why exactly did they build this directly across from Cross Iron Mills?

not sure if more stores opening up will actually attract customers... there is this mall in Vancouver called "Tsawwassen mills" and it was placed in an area similar to new horizon. It has many many great stores but the problem is that due to its terrible location it doesn't see many people. Sometimes that mall is so dead and other times it has some people, but compared to its capacity, its probably not nearly as much as they're wishing to see.

The idea kind of reminds me of a "modern" open market. Could be really great for small, locally owned businesses if it manages to take off.

You should find out about any planning applications or planned construction of housing in the area of that place. Seems a bit big for such a location, why would anyone or a big company invest in constructing such a big place in a remote area like that? Id guess its cause its prime future development land & they got in early, knowing the value in the location in the future? Also seems a bit weird, seems like a lot of wasted space especially in the ceiling, if the place is being rented dont they charge for the overall volume of the space? , doesnt seem like it was designed for this. See if you can talk with the owners about the big picture or the history of the place.

The issue with this mall is it’s right next to cross iron mills and cross iron has pretty much everything you’d need honestly and I’m from Calgary

This mall is growing slowly like trying to hit your first 100 subscribers on RU-vid. The grand opening did get pushed back to spring 2019 and given the pace it's going you'll likely see more activity in the mall next December. Still wonder why they built it next to CrossIron Mills and the area is very car dependant. Very limited access via public transit especially from Calgary.

Its so pretty looking but looks so lonely and cold

Now you've finally learned something: it is not about quantity, it is all about quality...

It seems good there’s a lot of smaller sections for smaller independent stores rather than the larger ones that only chains can afford (and are getting less relevant, at least in uk) if they get interesting ones in it, it might work!!

I went to that place but the security stop me from going inside. the reason, the mall doesn’t open until 12:00. hahah, good luck to the tenant that mall is a complete failure. malls typically opens as early as 6 am. i was there at 11:35 am saturday but that guard turn me down.

It looks like a bunch of old storage units turned into stores with all of the hallways and the grid pattern and that fact that it just looks like a wharehouse

From the first day of opening, the owners speculated that it would take about three years to take off. The mall that this is based on, took about two years to successfully operate. The major tenant, The Best Store, is doing well and is attracting a lot of shoppers.

The first honey store I ever saw was in, of all places, Carcross, Yukon.

I don’t think it’s empty because of online shopping The design concept looks very similar to pacific mall north of Toronto except the one here is packed.

I really love the style of that mall. Looks cool and modern.

There needs to be a song for dead malls and their surrounding communities.

Outdated you went before they opened the "Best Shop" in there, Legend has it they have a section dedicated to Chop Sticks (;

When the elevator said "Going down" it was actually a commentary on the future of the mall.

at 6:22 there is a dollar in the Christmas tree :D

Will you revisit this mall one year later?

I'm going to be driving past this mall in a couple of weeks. I was thinking of going to cross Iron mall but may do both now. One on the way out and one on the way back. It will be about lunch time maybe I will try the new eatery. The beef did look awesome.

Thank you for supporting Mob Business, I mean Small Business.

It would be a dream if they opened a Daiso Japan there. The only one in Canada is in Richmond BC.

Great video! I think the mall would be so much more successful if not for the location. Whoever decided placing it right next to Cross Iron Mills was a good idea should have been fired.

I remember when you had 300 subs. Congrats you are so close to 10k subscribers!

I noticed in the video that there were no seats/benches. Did the engineers/designers ever thought that perhaps places to seat would allow people to rest, relax, feel welcome, & hang around, and this would hopefully translate to more people traffic and spending???

I think it would have been better if it was full of food tenants. Can you imagine the uniqueness of a place filled with hundreds of locations selling every Asian food you can think of and more?

I think there just was a dearth of counterfeiters waiting to move in. pacific mall is filled with sketchy crap but those types of businesses aren't going to just spring up overnight in a place that doesn't already have the supply chain for that crap.

That "mall" looks more like a fancy swap meet to me.

Looks like an odd concept for a "mall", little cubes no where near big enough to house the regular mall store. So, basically it's for little one off boutiques like what we see in this video that just sell little odds and ends. Or, it's like an indoor arts and crafts show that are usually in parks during the summer. They can set up shop in one of these cubes permanently.

In time more and more stores will open as more and more people will come, eventually it will be the place to go