History
The original Aberdeen Centre was built in 1989 and was one of the first Asian malls in Canada. It contained about 50 to 75 stores, including a bowling alley and a movie theatre that showed Chinese films. At that time, the Chinese name of the mall was also borrowed from the Aberdeen Harbour in Hong Kong: which literally means "Little Hong Kong". The mall was called "Little Hong Kong Centre" in Chinese. In fact, Aberdeen Centre is also a large-scale residential development situated on the shores of Aberdeen Harbour in Hong Kong.
As new Asian malls such as Yaohan Centre and President Plaza opened, it soon became apparent that the original Aberdeen was too small to compete. It was demolished in 2001, and it was rebuilt for approximately $130 million. Architect Bing Thom was hired to design the building.
The current Aberdeen Centre, opened in 2003, is about three times the original mall's size and has around 100 stores, making it one of the largest malls in Richmond. While the English name remains Aberdeen Centre, the Chinese name of mall was changed to "Era Street". The new mall's primary anchor store is Daiso, which is the company's first store outside of Asia. Other notable stores include a Lamborghini dealership and fashion boutique (replacing the Ferrari-Maserati dealership as of May 2010), Starbucks (closed since 2009) and HSBC. There are also a notable number of restaurants located on its upper floors. An indoor musical fountain, similar to the one in front of Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas but smaller in scale, was built at the centre of the mall and performs shows every hour.
In 2006, the mall became home to the operations of Fairchild Group's Chinese-language TV and radio operations in Vancouver. Fairchild Radio (CJVB AM1470 and CHKG FM96.1) now has studios on the second floor, while Fairchild TV and Talentvision have their news studios on the third floor.
On August 8, 2008, the largest viewing party in the Vancouver area for the 2008 Summer Olympics took place at the mall, with thousands of spectators, some of whom had lined up since 3:30 in the morning.
In 2011, a Disney Movie "Geek Charming" was filmed here in Aberdeen Centre using their famous music fountain and etc. sites.
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