H&M is just one of 200-some stores at the Destiny USA mall in Syracuse. Photo by Laura Byrne Paquet.
Done the Rideau Centre? Know Bayshore inside out? But still itching for some retail therapy? It may be time for a road trip to Syracuse.
The university town in upstate New York is also home to a huge mall with the grand moniker Destiny USA, which to my ear sounds more like the name of a comic book superhero’s lair.
So what’s at Destiny USA that makes it worth a 3.5-hour road trip from Ottawa? For shopping junkies, it’s a 2.4-million-square-foot centre with more than 200 stores, including big names like Macy’s, JCPenney, Dress Barn and Burlington Coat Factory.
If you’re not a big shopper but a tag-along spouse, kid or friend, you can entertain yourself at an indoor golf simulator, 17-screen cinema (including an IMAX theatre), kids’ play centre, comedy club, bowling alley or indoor suspended ropes course, among other amusements. For old-school fun, take the kids for a ride on the vintage carousel. And there’s no shortage of places to eat, from take-out joints like Subway to posher spots like Brazilian- and Japanese-style steakhouses.
The vintage carousel gave the mall its former, pre-expansion name: the Carousel Centre. Photo by Laura Byrne Paquet.
So what’s it like to spend the better part of a day at a mall? Well, even for the biggest shopaholic—which I am not—it can be a bit enervating. It’s like a giant box of bright, shiny objects, and after a while, I just longed to sit down. (Eventually, I fled the mall to explore the rest of Syracuse—more about that in a future post.) But if you know your way around an issue of Vogue, you’ll be spurred on by outlet store deals like a tartan Prada trench coat at 75 percent off (which still clocked in at almost US$350) and a $180 discount on a pair of Stuart Weitzman pumps. For those of us with slimmer wallets, mid-range clothing chains like Ann Taylor and Banana Republic abound. Beyond fashion, you’ll find national chains like Best Buy, Williams-Sonoma and Pottery Barn.
If you want to make a weekend out of it, the mall has set up shop-and-stay packages with many local hotels. On a different trip through Syracuse, our daughter voted for the Comfort Inn and Suites Syracuse Airport Hotel, because of the big indoor pool. It’s not a fancy spot, but it’s a good choice for families, as it’s clean, fairly quiet, affordable, and close to the mall. And hey—if you stay in the States more than 48 hours, you can bring back C$800 worth of loot duty free.
If you go
Distance from Ottawa: 310km
More information: Destiny USA
