With the ‘retail experience’ becoming an increasing important sales strategy, Highstreet Fraser Valley is using technology to give its 600,000-sq-ftopen-air shopping centre in Abbotsford British Columbia additional appeal.
The three-level complex features main street style shopping and dining, with one- and two-storey buildings on the upper podium level, and a Walmart Supercentre with 1,400 covered parking stalls on the lower level. The development’s design offers a higher density than traditional regional retail projects, and aims to earn Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification – one of the first in Canada among large-scale retail projects.
Genesis Integration Inc, one of Canada’s leading national systems integrators, was called in to provide audio for Highstreet, with the project was managed from the company’s Vancouver office with design by Ross Hazlehurst and Dan Moran. The sound system’s primary function is to deliver music, but it also provides for announcements including emergency instruction.
‘The loudspeakers would be subjected directly to the elements, so we needed a design that could handle this and sound incredible,’ Hazlehurst explains. ‘Our first choice was Community, using the quality and wide dispersion of W Series for areas adjacent to the buildings, and R Series where greater throw was required.’
‘To my knowledge, this is the first outdoor mall of its kind in BC to have sound re-enforcement of this calibre. For me, this mall is reminiscent to the outdoor malls I have seen in California, such as Universal City. It lifts the perspective from just being a shopping centre to more of an entertainment facility. The coverage and quality of sound is excellent and all the feedback we have received has been very positive.’
Sixty Community W Series W2-2W8 surface-mounted loudspeakers are installed throughout the mall, as well as a set of R Series R.5-94s that re-enforce sound across the single large parking area. The system is set up as a single source throughout, but due to the large area, there are five satellite racks that feed off the main rack. These house a local amplifier, which feeds the zone in that proximity. All processing of the audio is via Biamp AudiaFlex DSP.
Genesis also installed a DJ input panel near the central escalator for events and presentations, especially at Christmas. DJs can bring in their own rigs and patch into the sound system to provide audio throughout the mall.
‘One challenge in such a large construction was creating a single zone from a central rack over such great distances’, Hazlehurst says. ‘But we solved this with RDL audio transmitter receivers that daisy chained the audio from rack to rack.
