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Eaton Centre (French : Centre Eaton) is a name associated with shopping centres in Canada, originating with Eaton's, one of Canada's largest department store chains at the time that these malls were developed. Eaton's partnered with development companies throughout the 1970s and 1980s to develop downtown shopping malls in cities across Canada. Each mall contained an Eaton's store, or was in close proximity to an Eaton's store, and typically the mall itself carried the "Eaton Centre" name. These joint ventures were a significant retail development trend in Canada during that period. [1]
With the demise of the Eaton's chain in 1999, and the retiring of the Eaton's name as a retail banner in 2002, most of these malls have been renamed, and most of these Eaton's store locations were converted to Sears Canada stores. Some malls in smaller urban areas, which were typically the least successful of all the Eaton Centre developments, have been demolished or converted to other, non-retail uses. In 2014, Sears announced that it would close its Toronto Eaton Centre store, which was eventually converted into a Nordstrom, followed by vacating their head office in the upper levels after a bankruptcy liquidation. Sears Canada went out of business in 2018.
Only the Toronto and Montreal Eaton Centres have retained the "Eaton Centre" branding for their entire existence.
These two malls were developed by the Eaton's chain and its partners and housed Eaton's stores, but were never branded as "Eaton Centres":
Beginning in the early 1970s, Ontario's provincial government led by Bill Davis poured millions of dollars over the course of a decade into the "Ontario Downtown Renewal Program" (ODRP) in order to revitalize the downtown retail areas of smaller communities throughout the province. Typically, this involved the construction of new downtown malls to compete with growing suburban shopping opportunities.
However, author Rod McQueen wrote in The Eatons that there was no business case or market analysis to justify the construction of these downtown malls. [1] Many residents noted that the enclosed facilities represented the antithesis to the one unique aspect of downtown shopping, street-related stores. Often the new downtown mall had a "vacuum cleaner" effect of attracting the stronger street boutiques away from their neighbourhoods to become tenants in unstable shopping centres. The lack of free parking in the downtown area was the number one impetus for residents flocking to suburban malls which had free parking, which did not help the cause of the downtown malls whose garages charged fees, collected by the municipalities who usually financed the construction mall garages. Suburban malls furthermore had the inherent advantage of conveniently located at where the city's population was relocating towards, including better access to arterial roads and freeways. [4] Conventional wisdom held that only larger cities, with populations of 200,000 or greater, had a wealthy enough clientele to support upscale department stores such as Eaton's or Hudson's Bay (the latter which only participated in the Galleria London location), while communities with populations of 100,000 or less were already well-served by existing retailers, such as discount stores Zellers and Woolco, and the mid-range department store Sears Canada (which only participated in three ODRP locations). [5]
Nonetheless, in a highly criticized business decision,[ according to whom? ] Eaton's became a partner in the program, and its stores served as the anchor tenant in many of these malls. As stated in The Globe and Mail newspaper, [5]
The history of retailing is filled with tales of merchants who were brilliantly prescient in their location choices, and others who totally misread their markets and fell flat. In the 1970s, the T. Eaton Co. became a textbook example of the latter when it built huge department stores in the increasingly empty downtowns of small Canadian cities; far from reviving the cores, the stores failed as consumers kept taking their business to suburban malls.
Major retail chains attracted to new downtown malls left as soon as their initial leases expired, while Eaton's bankruptcy filing and reorganization in 1997 resulting in the closure of all of its downtown locations in Ontario except those in Toronto and Ottawa. Sears Canada's ODRP locations in Chatham and Cornwall continued to survive short-term since they had no suburban malls as competition. [5]
None of these malls below ever enjoyed the success of some of the Eaton Centres in larger cities, and their failure contributed to the demise of the entire Eaton's chain.
Sears Canada Inc. was a publicly-traded Canadian company affiliated with the American-based Sears department store chain. In operation from 1952 until January 14, 2018, and headquartered in Toronto, Ontario, the company began as Simpsons-Sears—a joint venture between the Canadian Simpsons department store chain and the American Sears chain—which operated a national mail order business and co-branded Simpsons-Sears stores modelled after those of Sears in the U.S. After the Hudson's Bay Company purchased Simpsons in 1978, the joint venture was dismantled and Hudson's Bay sold its shares in the joint venture to Sears; with Sears now fully owning the company, it was renamed Sears Canada Inc. in 1984. In 1999, Sears Canada acquired the remaining assets and locations of the historic Canadian chain Eaton's. From 2014, Sears Holdings owned a 10% share in the company. ESL Investments was the largest shareholder of Sears Canada.
The Robert Simpson Company Limited, commonly known as Simpson's until 1972, then as Simpsons, and in Quebec sometimes as Simpson, was a Canadian department store chain that had its earliest roots in a store opened in 1858 by Robert Simpson.
A shopping center, shopping centre, also called a shopping complex, shopping arcade, shopping plaza or galleria, is a group of shops built together, sometimes under one roof.
CF Toronto Eaton Centre, commonly referred to simply as Eaton Centre, is a shopping mall and office complex in the downtown core of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is owned and managed by Cadillac Fairview (CF). It was named after the Eaton's department store chain that once anchored it before the chain went defunct in the late 1990s.
The T. Eaton Company Limited, later known as Eaton's and then Eaton, was a Canadian department store chain that was once the largest in the country. It was founded in 1869 in Toronto by Timothy Eaton, an immigrant from what is now Northern Ireland. Eaton's grew to become a retail and social institution in Canada, with stores across the country, buying-offices around the globe, and a mail-order catalog that was found in the homes of most Canadians. A changing economic and retail environment in the late twentieth century, along with mismanagement, culminated in the chain's bankruptcy in 1999.
Yorkdale Shopping Centre, Yorkdale Mall, or simply Yorkdale, is a major retail shopping centre in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Located at the southwest corner of the interchange between Highway 401 and Allen Road, it opened in 1964 as the largest enclosed shopping mall in the world. Yorkdale is currently the third largest shopping mall in Canada by floor space and has the highest sales per unit area of any mall in Canada, with current merchandise sales levels at roughly CA$1,905 per square foot. At 18 million annual visitors, it is one of the country's busiest malls. Many international retailers have ventured the Canadian market initially at Yorkdale.
Carrefour Laval is a superregional shopping mall in Laval, Quebec, Canada. It is located in the Chomedey neighbourhood of the city at the intersection of Laurentian Autoroute (A-15) and Autoroute Jean-Noël-Lavoie (A-440).
Fairview Pointe-Claire is the largest shopping mall in the West Island and one of the biggest on the Island of Montreal. It is located in the city of Pointe-Claire, Quebec, Canada, at the intersection of Trans-Canada Highway and Saint-Jean Boulevard.
Square One Shopping Centre, or simply Square One, is a shopping mall located in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada. It is the largest shopping centre in Ontario and the second largest shopping centre in Canada, after the West Edmonton Mall. It has over 2,200,000 square feet (200,000 m2) of retail space, with more than 360 stores and services. On average, the mall serves over 24 million customers each year. It operates on most holidays, making it the only shopping mall in the city and one of the few in the Greater Toronto Area that does so.
Henry Morgan & Company was a Canadian department store chain founded by Henry Morgan in 1845. The first store was in Montreal, and expanded to include 11 stores in Ontario and Quebec before being bought by Hudson's Bay Company in 1960. The stores in Ontario were converted to Hudson's Bay Company stores that year and renamed The Bay in 1965; the remaining Morgan's stores in Quebec were renamed La Baie in 1972.
Scarborough Town Centre (STC) is a shopping mall in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Central to the Scarborough City Centre district, it is adjacent to Scarborough Centre station, the Scarborough Centre Bus Terminal and the CTV Toronto studios (9 Channel Nine Court). Opened in 1973, the mall is the fourth largest shopping mall in Canada and third in Toronto by retail space.
Metropolis at Metrotown is a three-storey shopping mall complex in the Metrotown area of Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada. Opened in 1986, it is the largest mall in British Columbia and the third-largest in Canada, behind Alberta's West Edmonton Mall and Ontario's Square One Shopping Centre, with 27 million customer visits annually. The mall is located adjacent to Metrotown station on the SkyTrain rapid transit system. Three office buildings are part of the complex along Central Boulevard.
Masonville Place is a two-storey regional shopping mall located in London, Ontario, Canada, at the southeast corner of Fanshawe Park Road and Richmond Street. The mall contains over 130 stores, several restaurants, and a food court. Masonville Place is anchored by several large retailers including Hudson's Bay, Zara, H&M, Sport Chek/Atmosphere, and Shoppers Drug Mart. Cineplex Cinemas has two locations at the shopping mall, the SilverCity / IMAX theatres, and The Rec Room, an adult-centred entertainment facility featuring food, drink, arcade games and axe-throwing.
Sherway Gardens is a large retail shopping mall in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The mall is located 17 kilometres (11 mi) west of Downtown Toronto, near the interchange of Highway 427 with the Queen Elizabeth Way and Gardiner Expressway.
The Montreal Eaton Centre is a shopping mall located in the downtown core of Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It is accessible through the Underground City, which is connected to the Montreal Metro's McGill station.
The Cadillac Fairview Corporation Limited, branded as Cadillac Fairview, is a Canadian company that invests in, owns, and manages commercial real estate, mainly in Canada and the United States. As of March 2017, the company had 73 properties, encompassing 50 million square feet, worth over $40 billion. As of September 2017, Cadillac Fairview's portfolio consisted of 60% Canadian retail and 26% Canadian office buildings. Cadillac Fairview is wholly owned by the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan.
Promenades St-Bruno is a two-level shopping mall located in Saint-Bruno-de-Montarville, Quebec, Canada. Ground was broken in the spring of 1977 to build the mall and it was completed in August 1978. Les Promenades St-Bruno is the largest mall in the Montérégie and part of its consumer base come from cities as far as Saint-Hyacinthe and Sorel-Tracy. The anchor tenants are The Bay and Simons.
CF Markville, also known as Markville Shopping Centre in the Cadillac Fairview chain of malls, is a shopping mall of over 140 stores in Markham, Ontario, Canada. It is located at the intersection of Highway 7 East and McCowan Road, and runs along Bullock Drive, located slightly west of McCowan Road. Its anchors are Hudson's Bay, Winners, Walmart Supercentre, Decathlon, Sporting Life, Marshalls, Uniqlo, Best Buy, and a Toys "R" Us/Babies "R" Us combo store. It has a gross leasable area of 981,000 square feet (91,100 m2). It was the largest shopping mall in York Region until 2004 when Vaughan Mills opened.
Shoppers World Danforth is a hybrid shopping plaza and shopping mall in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It has 40 stores serving parts of East York, Scarborough and The Beaches, near the Victoria Park subway station. Today a moderately sized suburban plaza, it has a notable place in history as one of the first suburban and one of the first enclosed malls in Canada. It is approximately 326,300 square feet (30,310 m2) in area.
Market Square Shopping Centre is a mall located in the downtown core of Kitchener, Ontario, Canada, whose tenancy skews to services.