Les Corpse Mont-Royal: Unpacking the current state of Montreal’s weirdest mall
Once home to major retailers, Les Cours Mont-Royal is now mysteriously sparse with its many empty storefronts
For some, walking through the underground mall connected to the Peel Metro station might feel like stepping into an alternate reality.
But while it might seem like a fever dream, Les Cours Mont-Royal is very real.
“I feel like it’s abandoned,” said McGill University student Qian Fu, who often uses the mall to access Peel Metro.
Featuring stairs that lead to nowhere, construction and dangling cables, Les Cours Mont-Royal is a shopping centre in downtown Montreal that connects Peel Metro to Place Montréal Trust and the Eaton Centre.
“I can’t really imagine myself coming here to shop, just because of how empty it is,” Fu said.
From grand hotel to ghost town
Built in 1922, the building that is now Les Cours Mont-Royal was once the largest hotel in the British Empire, with a portion of the hotel’s ceiling preserved over the mall’s catwalk. In 1988, Les Cours was reopened after being transformed into the complex it is today.
“It’s kind of dead,” said Jacob Lopez, a frequenter of Scotiabank Cinema, which is accessible via Les Cours. “When I walk around here I just don't know what any of these stores are selling or what they do.”
Currently owned and operated by Soltron Group, Les Cours housed major retailers such as DKNY, Desigual and American Apparel in recent years.
“Many, many years ago, it was a great attraction mall,” said Chloe Martinez, an employee at Olivia, a clothing boutique in Les Cours. “A lot of people came here.”
Now, with most of its storefronts shuttered, Les Cours is a shell of its former self.
“I’m surprised that we’re still even open,” Martinez said, citing dwindling foot traffic since she started working at the store five years ago. “I don’t know how my boss does it.”
Currently, Les Cours houses Harry Rosen’s Montreal flagship location, an Au Pain Doré bakery and the free-to-visit Barbie Expo. The Barbie Expo boasts over 1,000 Barbies on its website, though the collection appears to have been quietly downsized after being relocated to another part of the mall due to flooding in 2023.
The contradictions of Les Cours
There have been clear attempts to inject new life into the mall, notably with the addition of Les Trois Monkeys, an entertainment centre with an arcade in July 2024. However, passers-by like Fu find the loud sounds that Les Trois Monkeys’ many arcade games emit throughout the mall to be “chaotic.”
Les Cours’s layout can also pose difficulty to those who do decide to wander through it, as many of its stairs and escalators are sporadically located within its multiple floors.
“It’s complicated,” Martinez said. “A lot of people do just come in the store to ask me, ‘Where’s this? How do I get upstairs? How do I get here and there?’”
Discord seems to be a defining feature of Les Cours. According to an article published about Les Cours’s renovation in 1988, the mall features motifs inspired by Egyptian, Italian and Old English architecture, making it difficult even for the architects behind the renovation to describe.
Nevertheless, the mall’s location in downtown Montreal makes it a convenient option for pedestrians who want to beat the heat or cold.
“It's pretty much like a central point to get to a bunch of different places,” Lopez said.
Portions of Les Cours are currently undergoing construction, though the reason is currently unknown to the public.
Valerie Law, head of marketing and communications at Soltron Group, declined a request to comment on the current state of the mall.
