The mall opened an expansion in November 1961, and another in March 1962, the latter bringing it to 33 stores. This made it one of Ottawa's largest shopping centres. The parking lot also expanded from 500 spots to 1400. The 1962 addition added an Ogilvy's department store, the first in a shopping centre, Steinberg's, and a Woolworth's. A 1961 "Ottawa Citizen" article covering a mall expansion claimed "the new centre by its accessibility to through highways, will become not only one of the largest shopping plazas in the district but one of the finest in the country."