I disagree. The Hyperdome serves residents pretty well I reckon, and is looking schmicker than it has for a while. I rarely need to go elsewhere. (Some may go to the $2 shops, but I personally don’t bother.) Limelight Cinema is tops, and now that Big W and JB are here I won’t be going to the Woden Plaza much.
And I NEVER spend money in Belco – that would be treachery! (and always seems to be a parking nightmare). Except maybe that nice little French Provincial shop . . . bah! there’s one of them at DFO!

OP sound jealous! Im guessing her usual stomping ground is the Riverside Plaza. She has never seen anything like this before!!!!

Pitchka said :

OP sound jealous! Im guessing her usual stomping ground is the Riverside Plaza. She has never seen anything like this before!!!!

Sounds more as if the OP is complaining that a particular suburban shopping centre is just like every other suburban shopping centre in the country.

Ah ha…I’m glad this post has appeared, as it gives me an opportunity to just say how disgusting the Hyperdome car park is. If I ever have to go to the Hyperdome, and anyone would try not to on a regular basis, I park in the car park near the library so I can avoid the disgusting smell of cigarette smoke handily supplied by smokers who can’t wait until they get out of the building, even though the signs ask them kindly not to. It’s not policed in anyway by the management.

The whole place, regardless of the new parts, is awful. Food courts selling absolute crap that encourage people who could do with eating a lot less crap to park themselves there, shops selling tatty clothing so that the teenagers who eat all the crap can spill out of them and parade around the shopping centre. Makes me shudder.

And why does Australia need so many bloody JB Hi-Fi outlets?

I choose the hyperdome 9/10 times that I need a mall… why?

1) it’s 5 mins from my house
2) has everything I need
3) Don’t have to pay for parking on the weekend (not that I am there much past the 2 hr mark anyway)
4) I can always find a park (apart from this time of the year, where I avoid all shops if I can help it)
5) It now has Big W. (which was the only reason I went to woden)
6) I like the junk shops. It’s a teachers best friend.

I would argue that most tuggeranong residents find it adequate.

“There’s even ANOTHER elcheapo junk shop and more short term leases that look like they belong at the local weekend garage sale or flee market. “

Pretty sure it is the same junk shop that used to bu upstairs (opposite Australia Post), just located downstairs after the refurb. I love the junk shop. All the playtoys my pet Galah could ever want, and costs 10% of the price for an identical item at Pet Barn.

Its not so bad. What shops would you expect to see? Go to any shopping centre in Australia and you will see the same chain stores. Why blame the Dome for this? The supermarket downstairs is pretty good.

Was “flee market” meant to be ironic?

Madam Cholet said :

Ah ha…I’m glad this post has appeared, as it gives me an opportunity to just say how disgusting the Hyperdome car park is. If I ever have to go to the Hyperdome, and anyone would try not to on a regular basis, I park in the car park near the library so I can avoid the disgusting smell of cigarette smoke handily supplied by smokers who can’t wait until they get out of the building, even though the signs ask them kindly not to. It’s not policed in anyway by the management.

The whole place, regardless of the new parts, is awful. Food courts selling absolute crap that encourage people who could do with eating a lot less crap to park themselves there, shops selling tatty clothing so that the teenagers who eat all the crap can spill out of them and parade around the shopping centre. Makes me shudder.

And why does Australia need so many bloody JB Hi-Fi outlets?

I’m pretty sure you just gave a description of ALL shopping centers…. And those tatty cloths are apparently fashion.. And JB-HiFi is a pretty dam good electronics store and they give good advice, so long as you speak to the right staff member of course.

miz said :

Limelight Cinema is tops, and now that Big W and JB are here

+1 for Limelight. About time bigw and jb made an appearance. There is, I agree more scope to improve the whole area.

Or perhaps this is appropriate?- Housos visit Tuggeranong.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UA9kTPJzyYM&feature=youtu.be

Madam Cholet said :

Food courts selling absolute crap that encourage people who could do with eating a lot less crap to park themselves there

Gotta keep eating if you want to keep that disability permit!!!

At the very least they could build an actual dome on it…

Erg0 said :

At the very least they could build an actual dome on it…

Front entrance. Look up.

There’s a front entrance? Every door into the place looks like a back entrance.

grunge_hippy said :

6) I like the junk shops. It’s a teachers best friend.

Ever heard the expression “every teacher is a teacher of English”?

Spitfire3 said :

There’s a front entrance? Every door into the place looks like a back entrance.

HAHAHAHA! Too true!

NoImRight said :

Erg0 said :

At the very least they could build an actual dome on it…

Front entrance. Look up.

I’ll have to do that. I had assumed it was some sort of clever post-modern thing.

#5, saying ‘I would argue that most tuggeranong residents find it adequate’ is what is called damning with faint praise.

The days of Malls being an ‘ experience’ are long gone. You don’t go there to admire the place.

The only reason to go there is to physically see a product and then go home and order it online at 30-70% cheaper.

And really, for most things that is not even necessary.

Erg0 said :

At the very least they could build an actual dome on it…

It has 14 domes – one over centre court, and 13 others in 3 groups on each main building axis.

When the did the 99 reno, the continued the theme with a trio of tinted skylights.

What sucks though is they boarded up and finally removed the window at St George bank, which offered a superb view over Tuggeranong.

It’s not all the Hyperdome’s fault though, it was built and located the way it is based on Tuggeranong being much larger, and extending west. That got axed, so it is on the edge of the suburbs not in the middle, and is probably larger than needed.

c_c™ said :

What sucks though is they boarded up and finally removed the window at St George bank, which offered a superb view over Tuggeranong.

Used to be a restaurant back when it first opened, then a clothes shop, a few other shops tried and then Go Lo was there for a bit too.

poetix said :

#5, saying ‘I would argue that most tuggeranong residents find it adequate’ is what is called damning with faint praise.

It’s a shopping centre. not the Guggenheim. What more do you want?

Deref said :

grunge_hippy said :

6) I like the junk shops. It’s a teachers best friend.

Ever heard the expression “every teacher is a teacher of English”?

You picked out someone’s error. You win the whole internet. Go you.

c_c™ said :

What sucks though is they boarded up and finally removed the window at St George bank, which offered a superb view over Tuggeranong.

It’s not all the Hyperdome’s fault though, it was built and located the way it is based on Tuggeranong being much larger, and extending west. That got axed, so it is on the edge of the suburbs not in the middle, and is probably larger than needed.

They’re building new office’s and everything in tuggeranong now. It only took the best part of 25 years!
They’ve put apartments up. Yet they are too small and not dense enough.
A few ACT government depts used to be in tuggeranong yet they were moved elsewhere.

There’s too much Piss poor planning in the ACT

Since when has a shopping mall been a thing to behold?

It just a place you go to get your shit & go home.

I just doe get people who carry on about how the Hyperdome was “dated”, to me it was the same as the Canberra Centre, only cheaper.

a beef I have with the new set up is that there is no easy way to get to Big W. If you go to the shops downstairs there isn’t an escalator like they promoted in the strange floaty people hording that they had up and there is no longer an entrance from the carpark near the southern cross – making it a very long walk from either level car park.

Perhaps Canberra is only big enough for 2 full-sized shopping malls.

Brisbane has a population of 2 million and only supports 5 proper shopping malls (Carindale, Garden City, Indooroopilly, Chermside and Starthpine).

Northside of Canberra only has Westfield Belco.

The Gungahlin and Tuggers shops are simply smaller local shopping centres… a bit bigger than a group centre, a bit smaller than a full-sized shopping mall.

Anywho, I do 95% of my shopping online and I don’t know why people still visit shopping malls at all.

You know it is pretty much a free market. You will find the shops that are in the Hyperdome are the shops where people are spending their money which in turn means they are the shops that the ‘market’ wants. Shops that don’t survive the market doesn’t want. Simple really.

JC said :

You know it is pretty much a free market. You will find the shops that are in the Hyperdome are the shops where people are spending their money which in turn means they are the shops that the ‘market’ wants. Shops that don’t survive the market doesn’t want. Simple really.

How can the market possibly support so many women’s clothing shops? You never see anyone in them.

Yes, Virginia, there are still shopping centre experiences. Th US shopping centres have figured it out: lots of marble, chandeliers, and a generally pleasant-bordering-on-posh environment, and people stay longer and spend more. The ‘Gallerias’ and similar US centres bear absolutely no resemblance to what we have here.

taninaus said :

a beef I have with the new set up is that there is no easy way to get to Big W. If you go to the shops downstairs there isn’t an escalator like they promoted in the strange floaty people hording that they had up and there is no longer an entrance from the carpark near the southern cross – making it a very long walk from either level car park.

Between the old and new loading docks on the ground level, there is apparently access. Not well marked though.

Most shopping centres are outdated, they come from the era of the all internal mall where you basically put a massive, brick, black hold in the middle of somewhere with minimal engagement with the surrounds.

The cafe strip the Hyperdome developed and North Quarter are decent attempts to turn that around, but really malls are terrible, sterile places. I’ll echo those who have commented they’re only good for quickly checking out things to buy online.

Kmart looks pretty snazzy now! It’s probably one of the main reasons I go there. I don’t care about Big W – it’s just like an over priced Kmart in my opinion.

I really really really miss Myer though!