Cockburn Gateway

This place got much better than when I originally wrote that review. It is much bigger now, has some decent shopping options in terms of clothes for men and it just looks much nicer. Still lacks a tech shop, but hey, it has improved.

This shopping centre has turned itself around! It used to be full of crappy shops and I’d avoid it like the plague. But now it has heaps of great new shops and lots of foodie places to eat. It’s a great shopping centre and I always enjoy coming here!

When did this place get fancy? Colour me impressed! This used to be a big empty shopping centre years back and now it’s the fancy place to be with loads of restaurants and great looking places to eat. Guzman & Gomez is even here!
Me likee!

Quite a nice shopping centre, it needs a lot more shops though, and sadly there is no kmart there :(I love kmart, but other than that it’s generally a very clean shopping centre, nice little variety of stores, nice employees at the information desks and the cleaners are helpful when I asked them for directions :)

Apart from not having a Mimco (my unhealthy obsession) or a cinema, this shopping centre has it all! Oh wait, the phone reception is a little rubbish but there is free wifi so I guess that kinda cancels it out… having said that I have not been able to connect to said wifi.
There is a huge range of shops in the shopping centre itself and then enough home /​furniture /​outdoor shops surrounding it to be all that you need! I particularly like the Target which is like no other. There is also a big W, most phone telcos and then lots of specialities stores.
The food court is decent, I recommend the Canton chinese :)

Living in the area this is my local centre, getting in and out is such a hassle ! The road structure seems to have been forgotten in the rush for the expansion.
Heaps of new speciality shops now open, I hope they all survive.

I’ve been holding off on this review to see what the new expansion was like — and I have to say I’m impressed.
There’s still a small amount of construction going on, and a few restaurants set to open in a week or so, but Cockburn Gateway has become my new favourite shopping centre in Perth.
It’s a hive of activity, with great restaurants, new facilities, good parking and a huge retail variety. The most impressive part for me is the food options. While there is the standard food court inside and the inevitable Maccas on the way out, there is also a selection of restaurants and better quality fast food options near one of the entrances — all with external access to allow them to be open outside shopping hours. There is a Grill’d, Lone Star, San Churros, a Fro-​Yo shop, Guzman Y Gomez, a Nandos and a Chinese restaurant opening soon. Quite possibly the best food selection at a shopping centre in Perth!
There are probably still more shops at Carousel, but the layout and the food options are far better at Gateways. All it needs now is a cinema (which is still to come) and I will have no reason to venture further than Gateways!

The new expansion of gateway is great! Feels like a whole new shopping centre now. New shops with a hip vibe, trendy clothing stores such as Live and Transit really made the difference. Not to mention the new dining area overlooking the carpark! A job well dne. And if you are stuck looking for parking check out the underground/​basement parking with fancy green/​red light indicators on the ceiling.
A must visit if you are driving pass along the free way or if you are living around the area. You can’t miss it. It’s HUGE!

Great place to shop lots of parking and a variety of shops … woolworths, big w, great florist, plenty of choices for coffee and eating options … they are renovating at the moment so it is only going to get bigger and better!

Cockburn Gateway demonstrates everything that is wrong with the shopping mall complex and it’s affects on the wider community.
So lets start with parking. Instead of providing sheltered or underground parking, Gateways has a carpark so big the curvature of the Earth affects visibility of objects in the distance. Despite it’s size, actually finding a park is difficult due to the confusing layout and limited points of egress into the park, when you do find one, expect to realise it would’ve been a better bet to just walk from the train station instead of trekking kilometres over scalding bitumen (it’s always hot in Cockburn, even when it rains) to one of just three points of entry to the centre.
Inside, the centre is firmly aligned with Woolworths, who’s various subsiduaries occupy the majority of the floorspace. Wesfarmers voraciously bought out the IGA and replaced it with a Coles to plant their flag inside the centre which they’ll no doubt build on when the dreaded expansion of the centre occurs in 2014. Not that the war for your mind would be noticed by the shoppers who frequent Gateways. The usual clientele consist of pensioners, struggling families and other types who’ve given up hope in their life, resigning themselves to shopping at Gateways. One time |I was there I was laughing my head off because some energy drink company had decided Gateways would be the best place to send their decked out SUV driven by steroid laced alpha bros and companion bleached bimbo to promote their failed chemistry experiment. They couldn’t find any teenage gangsters or trendy young adult types to promote their brand to and eventually gave up, tossing a few cans at a nearby disabled man from their window on their way out. I laughed at the energy drink company failing to promote thier shit, not the disabled person, i’m not that mean.
Tragically, Cockburn council saw fit to equip the centre with a library. Unlike the spacious and luxuriously appointed Libraries found in Coobellup and Spearwood, Cockburn Library is cramped, hot and useless. Despite this, it seems a hotspot for outings by uninspired carers, filling the place with nursing home residents or disabled adults leaving unemployed Joe to lose his patience waiting for a computer, only to claim it’s broken when he realises he left his library card at home and can’t login.
Cockburn Gateways is where dreams go to die is directly bringing down the council’s efforts to create a vibrant city centre 200 metres north.

It’s a long and desolate car drive down the Kwinana Freeway, but halfway between the city and Rockingham is Cockburn Gateways. It’s your average suburban shopping mall, and a good place for families to get their shopping done. It’s got a pretty good range of supermarkets to choose from, with Woolworths and IGA under the same roof, along with Big W, a few salons, a JB HiFi, Supre, Betts, Bright Eyes, a few banks, a library and heaps more. People move here very, very slowly, so plan extra time if you’re in a hurry!
The shopping centre is fairly clean and safe during the day, but I’ve been warned to park here at night at my own risk.

I’ve stopped at this shopping centre a few times on trips down south; there’s something about this part of the Freeway that reminds me that I’ve forgotten to pack something, so when I see the boxy shape of this shopping centre on my right, I have to pull in. The problem is, the process of getting into and out of this shopping centre to and from the freeway is as nightmarish as the twisted grammar of this sentence. It usually takes a lot longer than I expect to duck in and out, so I would possibly suggest turning off at Baldivis, or, better yet, sucking it up and just going without whatever it was that you might have left behind (unless it’s deodorant). That said, this is a fairly standard suburban shopping centre, but so long as you’re not shopping for furniture or high grade consumer electronics, you should find what you need here.
If you’re a local, you’ll find this place pretty adequate for your shopping needs and it’s nice to see a library located in the entrance to a shopping centre as it is here; I think if I was confronted with its’ bookshelves every time I had to buy some milk and bread, I would be more likely to take a book home. Parking is slightly more chaotic than you’d expect for this kind of shopping centre, so make sure you’re psychologically prepared to deal with bad drivers before you head here.