Coquitlam Town Centre is the planned downtown area of the city — a one-square-kilometre district of mid-rise apartment towers, a major shopping mall, civic buildings and parkland. It was originally laid out in the 1980s, but the area saw a major building boom after the Evergreen Extension of the SkyTrain Millennium Line opened in 2016, bringing rapid transit access from downtown Vancouver.
The shopping is centred on the Coquitlam Centre mall — one of the largest in the Lower Mainland, with about 200 stores — and the smaller Henderson Place Mall opposite, which has a strong Chinese and Asian food and retail focus. The civic core sits around Town Centre Park, with the City Hall, the Evergreen Cultural Centre, the public library and the aquatic centre all within a five-minute walk.
The whole district is walkable from the three SkyTrain stations (Coquitlam Central, Lincoln, Lafarge Lake–Douglas). It is the practical base for any visit to Coquitlam, with most of the hotels and restaurants concentrated here.