Hudson's Bay Queen Street is a building complex on the southwest corner of

Yonge Street Yonge Street (; pronounced "young") is a major arterial route in the Canadian province of Ontario connecting the shores of Lake Ontario in Toronto to Lake Simcoe, a gateway to the Upper Great Lakes. Once the southernmost leg of provincial Hi ...

and

Queen Street West Queen Street is a major east-west thoroughfare in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It extends from Roncesvalles Avenue and King Street in the west to Victoria Park Avenue in the east. Queen Street was the cartographic baseline for the original east ...

downtown Toronto Downtown Toronto is the main central business district of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Located entirely within the district of Old Toronto, it is approximately 16.6 square kilometres in area, bounded by Bloor Street to the northeast and Dupont Stre ...

Ontario Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central Ca ...

, Canada. It was originally named the Simpson's Department Store, and operated as the flagship store of the

Simpsons ''The Simpsons'' is an American animated sitcom created by Matt Groening for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series is a satirical depiction of American life, epitomized by the Simpson family, which consists of Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa, a ...

department store chain from 1895–1991. It became a flagship store of its successor, The Bay, in 1991 (rebranded to Hudson's Bay in 2013). The building was retrofitted to house the first

Saks Fifth Avenue Saks Fifth Avenue (originally Saks & Company; Colloquialism, colloquially Saks) is an American Luxury goods, luxury department store chain headquartered in New York City and founded by Andrew Saks. The original store opened in the F Street and ...

department store in Canada in 2016. The building is the headquarters of the

Hudson's Bay Company The Hudson's Bay Company (HBC; french: Compagnie de la Baie d'Hudson) is a Canadian retail business group. A fur trading business for much of its existence, HBC now owns and operates retail stores in Canada. The company's namesake business div ...

, which owns both department store chains. The company sold the building to

Cadillac Fairview The Cadillac Fairview Corporation Limited 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 38 million square feet ...

in 2014 and maintains a

leaseback Leaseback, short for "sale-and-leaseback", is a financial transaction in which one sells an asset and leases it back for the long term; therefore, one continues to be able to use the asset but no longer owns it. The transaction is generally done f ...

agreement with the company through at least 2039. Through this agreement, the building is part of the CF-owned

Toronto Eaton Centre The Toronto Eaton Centre (corporately styled as the CF Toronto Eaton Centre since September 2015, and commonly referred to simply as the Eaton Centre) is a shopping mall and office complex in the downtown core of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is ...

, although a skybridge had already connected the adjacent properties since the 1970s.

History

1895–1991: Simpsons

The 1896

sandstone Sandstone is a clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate grains. Sandstones comprise about 20–25% of all sedimentary rocks. Most sandstone is composed of quartz or feldspar (both silicates) ...

building located on Queen Street slightly west of Yonge Street was built by Toronto firm of Burke and Horwood for

Simpson's 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. ...

Department Store in the

Romanesque Revival Romanesque Revival (or Neo-Romanesque) is a style of building employed beginning in the mid-19th century inspired by the 11th- and 12th-century Romanesque architecture. Unlike the historic Romanesque style, Romanesque Revival buildings tended to ...

style with Chicago School influences. The fireproof steel frame structure replaced the original 6-storey store that burned in 1895 just three-months after opening. The store was built to replace the original Simpson's dry goods business at 184 Yonge Street and was located directly across from

rival A rivalry is the state of two people or groups engaging in a lasting competitive relationship. Rivalry is the "against each other" spirit between two competing sides. The relationship itself may also be called "a rivalry", and each participant o ...

retailer's

Eaton's Annex Eaton's Annex was a 10-storey building containing both retail and office space in Downtown Toronto, Downtown Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It opened in January 1913 and was located at the northwest corner of Albert Street and James Street, west of Ea ...

. The store's interior featured an open atrium that extended from the ground to the sixth floor. In addition to other departments, the basement featured a coffee shop and discount division. In 1954, it was connected to the Queen subway station and later to the

PATH A path is a route for physical travel – see Trail. Path or PATH may also refer to: Physical paths of different types * Bicycle path * Bridle path, used by people on horseback * Course (navigation), the intended path of a vehicle * Desire p ...

network. In the early 20th Century, a

Dominion The term ''Dominion'' is used to refer to one of several self-governing nations of the British Empire. "Dominion status" was first accorded to Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Newfoundland, South Africa, and the Irish Free State at the 1926 ...

supermarket (City Hall Market) occupied the northeast corner of the ground floor. It closed in the 1960s. The store outgrew the capacity of the structure by 1900, leading to the first of several expansions. Burke and Horwood returned with additions in 1907 and 1923. The largest expansion came in 1929 with

Chapman and Oxley Chapman and Oxley was a Toronto-based architectural firm that was responsible for designing a number of prominent buildings in the city during the 1920s and 1930s. Even with the departure of Chapman, the firm's last projects appeared to be in the l ...

's nine-floor

Art Deco Art Deco, short for the French ''Arts Décoratifs'', and sometimes just called Deco, is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design, that first appeared in France in the 1910s (just before World War I), and flourished in the Unite ...

addition (facing Bay and Richmond) capped by the Arcadian Court. When construction completed, the store occupied two full city blocks. In 1969, John B. Parkin's

Simpson Tower The Simpson Tower, located at 401 Bay Street, is the 38th-tallest building in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Completed in 1968 by architect John B. Parkin, as the headquarters of the Simpsons department store company, it has 33 floors and is high. In ...

was added to the complex at the corner of

and

Bay Street Bay Street is a major thoroughfare in Downtown Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is the centre of Toronto's Financial District and is often used by metonymy to refer to Canada's financial services industry since succeeding Montreal's St. James Stre ...

to house Simpson's offices. Unlike Eaton's, the store survived the remaking of the neighbourhood and retained the original look. A glass-enclosed bridge was added in the late 1970s to allow customers to access the

without braving the elements or traffic. ''

Today's Special ''Today's Special'' is a Canadian children's television program produced by Clive VanderBurgh at TVOntario, originally broadcasting 120 episodes from 1981 to 1987. Much of the series was set in a department store, based on Simpson's then-flags ...

'', a children's television series that aired on

TVOntario TVO Media Education Group (often abbreviated as TVO and stylized on-air as tvo) is a publicly funded English-language educational television network and media organization serving the Canadian province of Ontario. It is operated by the Ontario ...

and in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

Nickelodeon Nickelodeon (often shortened to Nick) is an American pay television television channel, channel which launched on April 1, 1979, as the first cable channel for children. It is run by Paramount Global through its List of assets owned by Param ...

during the 1980s, utilized the location for several scenes.

1991–present: Hudson's Bay

In 1991, the Simpson's name was replaced with the banner The Bay (amended to the current "Hudson's Bay" in 2013). The Bay Queen Street continues the Simpson's tradition of Christmas-themed display windows facing Queen Street West west of the main Queen Street entrance. The complex connects to the nearby

Bay Adelaide Centre The Bay Adelaide Centre is an office complex in the Financial District of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The first phase, a 51-storey skyscraper known as Bay Adelaide West, was completed in July 2009. The second phase, the 44-storey Bay Adelaide Eas ...

Queen Station Queen is a subway station on Line 1 Yonge–University in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is located under Yonge Street north from Queen Street to Shuter Street. Wi-Fi service is available at this station. History Queen Station opened in 1954 ...

and shared underground parking complex. In January 2014, HBC announced it had sold the property to

through a

sale-and-leaseback Leaseback, short for "sale-and-leaseback", is a financial transaction in which one sells an asset and leases it back for the long term; therefore, one continues to be able to use the asset but no longer owns it. The transaction is generally done f ...

arrangement, with HBC leasing the property for at least the following 25 years (with options for a further 50 years). Under the deal, the store is for the first time considered an official part of the Cadillac Fairview-owned

. The main department store space was divided into two, with one side remodeled and opened in 2016 as a

, a luxury department store chain that HBC acquired in 2013, the other half retains the Hudson's Bay store. In 2016, a grocery store, Saks Food Hall, was added run by Pusateri's in the basement. Hudson's Bay Queen Street Entrance Lobby 2021.jpg, Entrance Lobby Hudson's Bay Queen Street Level 2 2021.jpg , Level 2 Women Fashion Hudson's Bay Queen Street Level 3 2021.jpg, Level 3 Shoes Hudson's Bay Queen Street Level 6 2021.jpg , Level 6 Furniture

References

External links

{{Commonscat-inline, Robert Simpson Department Store Building
The Bay Store Locator
Buildings and structures in Toronto PATH (Toronto) Chapman and Oxley buildings Hudson's Bay Company Chicago school architecture in Canada

History

1895–1991: Simpsons

1991–present: Hudson's Bay

See also

References

External links