Guiding shoppers to Edmonton’s new outlet mall

by | 30 August 2018 9:53 am

By Peter Saunders

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On May 2, real estate developer Ivanhoé Cambridge opened the Premium Outlet Collection Edmonton International Airport (EIA) shopping centre, a new, fully enclosed 39,763-m² (428,000-sf) mall built to accommodate more than 100 tenants, ranging from fashion retailers to food-service franchises and from jewellery shops to chocolatiers.

“We’re extremely proud to bring this shopping experience to Edmonton and the surrounding areas,” said Jason Bos, the mall’s general manager (GM). “This centre is expected to become a sought-after shopping destination, drawing local value-seekers, travellers in transit and tourists visiting the province.”

With this objective in mind, Premium Outlet Collection EIA—developed to be serve as Edmonton’s equivalent to Calgary’s Cross Iron Mills—needed larger-than-life signage to capture consumers’ attention. PM Signs, with offices in Edmonton, Calgary and Saskatoon, was hired for the job, which entailed more than 300 signs in total.

An old-school look for new construction

The team at PM Signs first heard about the project from PCL, the construction company contracted to build the mall, several years ago and provided input before the signage components of the project were tendered. This advice particularly focused on how the tenants’ signs could be attached to the outside of the new building.

“We were subsequently awarded the job in April 2017,” says Cody Mathiesen, vice-president (VP) of sales and marketing for PM Signs. “It included two packages: exterior and interior. We had worked on another mall in downtown Edmonton and this was similar, just at a much bigger scale!”

In fact, Ivanhoé Cambridge was looking to source everything from outdoor pylons to wayfinding signs to washroom decals. It provided a sign layout concept package to PM Signs, which Mathiesen’s team then redrew to scale for manufacturing purposes.

“There were months of planning,” he says. “We went back and forth, submitting colour, size and material samples for approval.”

The developer sought a ‘faux rust’ style, for which PM Signs tested various painting and printing techniques before settling on an orange and brown painted texture effect.

“They had done that style of sign previously, but we were still needed to turn the concept into reality for the mall,” says Mathiesen.

One reason for the artificially aged appearance of the signs was to offset the flashier style of the building with an ‘old-school’ design scheme (though the signs would also be brightly illuminated at night).

Midway through the construction of the mall, which had been eight to 10 years in the planning, PCL left the project after the base build and the rest of the work switched to Ledcor. For PM Signs, this change simply meant communicating and co-ordinating efforts with a different set of contacts, but there were also delays. The mall’s opening date was postponed from Oct. 18, 2017, to May 2, 2018.

“That was a relief, as we were only able to start fabricating the signs in fall 2017,” says Mathiesen. “Co-ordination was a big deal, but everything went smoothly. The installation of the signs came during crunch time, when communications with Ivanhoé and Ledcor sped up dramatically. In that sense, I would say the second half of the project went even more smoothly than the first.”

Inside and out

For the exterior of the venue, PM Signs created six light-emitting diode (LED) illuminated pylons, six 3-m (10-ft) tall illuminated exterior entrance signs, 15 aluminum parking plaques, vinyl door and window graphics, 24 ‘no smoking’ plaques and, most notably, a set of 23 1.8-m (6-ft) tall illuminated channel letters to spell out the mall’s name alongside Alberta’s Highway 2, in a visual style reminiscent of the famous Hollywood sign.

For the interior, the company produced six 1.2-m (4-ft) tall non-illuminated entrance signs, 200 general identification (ID) plaques, two push-through LED cabinets for information desks, nine projecting washroom panels, six illuminated projecting washroom signs, 11 braille washroom plaques and 14 wayfinding directories to be hung from the ceilings in different locations throughout the mall. These 1.2 x 6.7- (4 x 22-ft) tenant directories were specially engineered with loading and anchor points to prevent them from swinging around in the air. There were also many wall-mounted wayfinding signs that, in contrast to the exterior faux-rust effect, had to look clean and crisp from up close.

“Then, when there was only one month left, the tenants’ own signs came along,” says Mathiesen. “We did a lot of third-party installations for them, as we could serve as their local partner. Installations are half of our business. That said, this took a lot of co-ordination at a time when there were still a many other contractors on-site. The size of this facility kept us so busy, we simply could not take on as many of the third-party sign installations as we wanted.”

A facility-specific sign guide included strict criteria for the heights of the tenants’ signs and how they could be mounted to their raceways. This approach helped ensure consistency throughout the facility.

An ongoing project

PM Signs was kept busy right up until the opening with such last-minute applications as fire extinguisher decals. And some pylons had to be left blank until more tenants were added to the mall after it opened. Indeed, the third-party sign installations will be ongoing, as new tenants come in and others change their branding or leave.

“The developer put a hold on new tenants for just a week or two after opening,” Mathiesen explains. “As occupancy is still growing, we are updating the wayfinding signs accordingly, as well as moving some pieces and fixing scratches. There is a food court in the middle of the mall, for example, where more stalls are being added this summer.”

There is also room to expand the overall size of the mall in the future, if demand grows.

“It’s a great location, with a major airport, lots of manufacturing in the area and close by to Leduc, Alta.,” says Mathiesen. “Just like other cities with outlet malls, this one helps put Edmonton on the map.”

With files from PM Signs. For more information, visit www.pmsigns.ca[7].

Source URL: https://www.signmedia.ca/guiding-shoppers-to-edmontons-new-outlet-mall/

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