Hope for reviving Canada's small inner city malls

[G W North]

Urban mall renewal

Home Depot plans to open a store this fall in Gerrard Square Shopping Centre Mall owners hope big-box retailer will attract othe

DANA FLAVELLE

BUSINESS REPORTER

Joanne Hamill, who owns the Hair Place, a beauty salon in Gerrard Square, has watched as the small, inner city mall just east of downtown Toronto has gradually slid downhill.

"Its been really neglected in the last couple of years," Hamill said of the 30-year-old mall located on Gerrard St. E. near Pape Ave.

Like hundreds of other small, inner city malls across the country, Gerrard Square was left behind when Wal-Mart Stores Inc. led a U.S. invasion of the Canadian retail scene in the mid-1990s.

Transposing the blueprint that had worked well in the United States, many of these big name retailers

[wolverine]

Well, I hope home Depot can save the mall. That's pretty sad what some of the big box retailers have done to Canadian cities as in the U.S. However, Home Depot has been on my good side lately. My aunt's home was actually demolished to clear way for a home depot and they claim it was the best thing that ever happened to them. My uncle owned an electrical company that he ran behind their home. Years later, the area began to sprawl and their house became an oasis within brand named stores and ocean sized parking lots. They knew they would never sell the house because of the location was bad and my uncle was ready to retire. The phone call from Home Depot asking to buy their land was a dream come true. Home Depot even integrated the 50 year old trees into their landscape plan around the parking lot. This probably is the only time I've ever been happy with suburban growth. But for the most part, I hate it. I really hope the expanding growth around Toronto does not hurt the city. It's good to see some large businesses showing interest in reviving the underdogs.

[G W North]

Just to give you an idea how many malls Toronto has, I've lived in the Toronto area for 19 years, and had never even HEARD OF this mall until a few weeks ago. Granted it's nota major mall (the article said 60 stores), but in how many cities could you live for 19 years and have never heard of a indoor mall with 2 dept. stores (until Sears closed a couple weeks ago) and a supermarket. There are probably loads of malls in the Toronto area I not only haven't visited, but have never even heard of

Anyways, after reading an article about the Home Depot opening a few weeks ago I drove down to the area to see this mall I had never heard of. I got there on a Saturday night, so the mall was closed, but just driving around it and looking in the windows at the food court it looked like one of those old malls that is out-of-date and ugly. I'd like to see these types of malls torn down and replaced with mixed use complexes where all the retail opens to the sidewalk and not an interior mall. I'd especially like to see that with this mall, as it's in the middle of a very urban area.

It should be noted though, that this mall's "footprint" (the whole area it covers including parking, etc.) appeared to be very small (actually I know it was, because I drove around the perimeter). Most of the parking looked to be in a multi-level garage. It's is not severed from the surrounding dense, urban neighborhood by acres of parking lots.

[G W North]

I'm 90% sure I've correctly labelled the mall below on this aerial. I'm not really familiar with that part of town, but I'm pretty sure that's it. I've done this just to give you an idea where it is. As you can see, it's not downtown, but definitely "inner city".

[BrandonTO416]

I see the beaches below. Its so beautiful to walk along it - I saw the fireworks on Victoria Day in 2002 from there. Was a bit cold, but FUN!

[swags]

The only time I've seen that mall is from the outside, from the GO Train that travels right past it. Even from the outside, it looks outdated, and even "ghetto" if you want to use that term.