In Montreal, for example, Place Vertu (located in the Saint-Laurent borough, on the west side of Montreal) has its own directory indicating what you’ll find inside: one floor of shops. There’s no second retail level to explore. A map indicates which part of the large structure house services, groceries and shops. That way, a trip doesn’t turn into a trek across the whole centre.
In the upper left is the search box. Type in a name and the plan move to the unit. Open a category and stay there if you don’t know whose name to use. Fashion, electronics, beauty, services, food are split out deliberately. Because what’s next to each other in a wing might be a restaurant, a supermarket, a clothing shop, and they’re the wrong door for what you need.
The yellow shape (or a name from the list) open the same description. Use the scroll wheel or the buttons at the lower right to zoom around. Full screen on a phone lets you read the unit before locking the car or leaving the metro.
Place Vertu Directory Map
Think of Canadian Tire or Winners; they’re big enough to be reference points. For grocery trips with a Middle Eastern and Mediterranean range, think Adonis. The little kiosk isn’t going to get you oriented. Find the big footprint closest to where you want to go, and look for the smaller name to guide you the rest of the way. Sports Experts can do the same thing for sports gear. Smaller tenants comes and go; big shapes remain, so memory of a sign’s former location is less trustworthy then that sidebar. Even if the corridor looks familiar, you’ve got the wrong unit if it doesn’t describe the errand.
On this plan, food comes in a spot where you thought you might sit down or a short counter. Tim Hortons is the obvious pause between errands. Meeting someone? Read the note: their name isn’t necessarily an open seat in the dining room. Stopping for coffee is a different kind of visit different than stopping for something to eat.
There are accessories and fashion, but it don’t take up the entire space. Stay in your lane: don’t go to a salon just to get your phone repaired. The counters selling repairs, cases, and plans all look similar from the corridor, even though people go there for different reasons.
It’s a bustling metro, Côte-Vertu, and the walk/bus from there to your door count as part of the journey. Parking surrounds the centre, too… And the closest door varies depending on the pin you pick. That’s what you look at before committing to one side of the building.
If walking matters to you, there are two approaches: a grocery run at Adonis, and a clothing stop at the other end. You don’t realy realize this till you’re in the directory, when you can still make your choice. On a plate this broad, “inside Place Vertu” isn’t an exact meeting spot coming off the metro. Name the pin. That means a grocery trip and a clothing browse do not has to share a door.
If it’s the walk that matters, then a fashion stop at the far end of the plate and a grocery trip will work just fine. This is what that looks like on the drawing, and there is still time to make another exit or another row from the metro. A weekday service appointment and weekend browsing are different ways to use the same floor. Keeping a repair, a salon, and a restaurant from becoming one long wander is the sidebar’s job.
Open the heading that fits your job, read the note, and close the other lists. The hours change. Hours change, particularly around holidays. Leases change. You check that it’s the store you’re after. And the layout and categories are there to make your trip to the West Island as quick as possible. That’s the kind of trip this one-floor plan is built for.
