The development of Mill Woods began in the 1970s and was designed to be self-contained community so that residents would have no need to leave the community for shopping or recreation. In 1969, the city set aside land near the center of Mill Woods for the development of a
town centre. The town centre was envisioned to be a mixed-use project that would consist of a shopping centre, offices, institutions, medium and high density housing, and commercial establishments. In a land swap deal with the City of Edmonton, in February 1984,
Woodward's bought 60 acres of commercial land in Mill Woods Town Centre to develop a 400,000 square foot shopping mall in exchange of 80 acres of land in northwest Edmonton that was zoned for residential use. The deal was criticized by some of the city council's aldermen after they questioned that the city had sold the land for less than it was worth. The mall was projected to open in fall 1987 but was delayed to late 1988 after Woodward's sold their real estate assets to
Cambridge in October 1985. On August 17, 1988, the mall officially opened with Woodward's,
Kmart,
Safeway, and
BiWay as the mall's anchor stores.
Edmonton Public Library's Mill Woods branch also moved into the mall. In 1998, Eaton's and Kmart closed and their spaces were replaced with
Zellers and
Canadian Tire, respectively. In 2012, Zellers closed and its site was converted to
Target the following year on May 6, 2013. Target would eventually close on April 2, 2015 due to the company shutting down their Canadian operations. In 2013, Safeway closed and became a
Co-op the following year. The Edmonton Public Library branch moved out in 2015 to its own location a block away from the mall. In 2017, then-building owner
RioCan announced a plan to redevelop the site over the next 25 years, which would include a new transit station to serve the
Mill Woods LRT stop (which opened in November 2023) and two new 18-story residential towers. In July 2022, Co-op announced that they would be closing its Mill Woods Town Centre location at the end of January 2023 due to declining sales. In December 2022, the mall was bought by local developer Maclab Development Group with plans to add more infill housing on the site. ==Transit==