This is the directory to Carlingwood Mall on Carling Avenue in Ottawa. It’s all one level; they don’t even have an upper level where you can shop. So it really doesn’t matter what store you want to go to, just which door will get you there quickly and how far inside you has to walk. Because once you’re inside walking around, there’s no skipping any wing on that level.
The search box up in the top left take it to that unit if you know the store name. The sidebar keeps you within one category, such as food. Is it fashion? electronics? beauty? It keeps you within one category, like services, if that’s all you know about the errand.
Tapping a yellow shape and a name in the list open the notes. These notes explain the business so that everything doesn’t just look like a single line. You can zoom using the buttons at the bottom right or by scrolling with your mouse or finger. On a phone, full screen is the readable view, and units remain small until you enlarge the drawing.
Carlingwood Mall Directory Map
The size of Loblaws and Canadian Tire can help you get your bearings. If you’re looking for a kiosk in the middle of a hall, it won’t be able to tell you what end of the store you’re at. Find the big shape closest to whatever errand you came for; then look for the smaller name from there. Tim Hortons is just a stop you make in between, not the reason you would look through all the food listings.
Here most people make a quick combo trip: one bigger stop (groceries, or a household thing), one more compact stop, perhaps some food to pick up on the way home. Before you choose a door off Carling, you’ll want to check if those pins is close together on the map.
Beauty, shoes, fashion also gets their slice of the floor. These are all separate errands from getting your phone repaired, to a trip to the pharmacy counter. Walking the wing on hope means you stay in the right category for the job. From the corridor, the electronics counters looks the same. The description separates. There is a case seller. A plan seller. A repairer. And you join a queue.
A bank visit, or a clinic appointment is a service. It’s on the plan. You know if it shares a door with the shop you came for. West-end Ottawa trips to this mall are often chained with something else along Carling, so the indoor portion should of stay as short as the pins allow. Use the one with the same-side entrance as the unit, not the one that looks open but is realy just the first row.
Sometimes there’s a stop at each end, and that’s for real. You’ll see it drawn out on the plan because you’re still mobile. On your phone, you haven’t zoomed yet. It just looks tight till you do.
Instead of “the mall entrance,” if there’s two of you coming in separately, give them something bigger to look for, like a big pin. There’s more than one door into Carling, and a vague meeting place leaves one of you standing outside Canadian Tire while the other’s inside Loblaws. For that, you’ve got the directory, which both of you can use (even though neither of you need anything else on the list).
Look at it before you exit your car, not after you’ve walked down the wrong wing and have to double-back. The drawing never changes as much as the floor does on holiday weekends. On a Tuesday, the quick pause counter becomes a line that eats into the time you saved by parking well. The directory won’t tell you about that line. It will tell you if the next stop is a wing away or right beside you, so you can guess at dropping the extra errand rather than having to guess.
Hours change faster then the floor plan, and leases change. Let the description and the categories do the rest, and confirm the store you drive for.
