The Lawrence Allen Centre, formerly Lawrence Square Shopping Centre, is a

shopping centre A shopping center (American English) or shopping centre (Commonwealth English), also called a shopping complex, shopping arcade, shopping plaza or galleria, is a group of shops built together, sometimes under one roof. The first known collec ...

located in

Toronto Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the ancho ...

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. Owned by

RioCan RioCan Real Estate Investment Trust is the second-largest real estate investment trust (REIT) in Canada. It has an enterprise value of approximately $14 billion, and owns 289 primarily retail properties, with a net leasable area of 44 million ...

, it is one of the city's twenty largest malls. It is located on Lawrence Avenue West, west of Allen Road, in the neighbourhood of

Lawrence Heights Lawrence Heights is a neighbourhood in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is located north-west of central Toronto, in the district of North York. The neighbourhood is roughly bounded by Lawrence Avenue to the south, Yorkdale Road to the north, Varna Dri ...

, the district of

North York North York is one of the six administrative districts of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is located directly north of York, Old Toronto and East York, between Etobicoke to the west and Scarborough to the east. As of the 2016 Census, it had a popu ...

. It is accessible from the

Toronto Transit Commission The Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) is the public transport agency that operates bus, subway, streetcar, and paratransit services in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, some of which run into the Peel Region and York Region. It is the oldest and largest ...

Lawrence West station Lawrence West is a subway station on Line 1 Yonge–University in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is located in the median of William R. Allen Road at Lawrence Avenue West. The station serves the local communities of Lawrence Heights, Lawrence M ...

, as well as via various bus routes. It is a

terminating vista In urban design, a terminating vista is a building or monument that stands at the end or in the middle of a road, so that when one is looking up the street the view ends with the site. Function Terminating vistas are considered an important me ...

of Marlee Avenue. North of Lawrence Allen Centre is the

Yorkdale Shopping Centre Yorkdale Shopping Centre, or simply Yorkdale, is a major retail Shopping center, shopping centre in the North York district of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Located at the intersection of Ontario Highway 401, Highway 401 and Allen Road, it opened i ...

Tenants

The anchor stores are

Canadian Tire Canadian Tire Corporation, Limited is a Canadian retail company which operates in the automotive, hardware, sports, leisure and housewares sectors. Its Canadian operations include: Canadian Tire (including Canadian Tire Petroleum gas stations a ...

on the west side and

Fortinos Fortinos is a Canadian supermarket chain that was founded in Hamilton, Ontario. It operates 23 stores across the western Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area. It is owned by Loblaw Companies Limited. History In 1961, Italian immigrant steelwork ...

(

Loblaw Companies Limited Loblaw Companies Limited is a Canadian retailer encompassing corporate and franchise supermarkets operating under 22 regional and market-segment banners (including Loblaws), as well as pharmacies, banking and apparel. Loblaw operates a private ...

) on the northwest side. There was a

Zellers Zellers was a Canadian discount department retail chain and is currently a brand name owned by the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC). Founded in 1931 in London, Ontario, in later decades it was based in Brampton, Ontario. Zellers was acquired by HBC i ...

on the east side, which became vacant in early 2013. There were plans to have

Target Canada Target Canada Co. was the Canadian subsidiary of the Target Corporation, the eighth-largest retailer in the United States. Formerly headquartered in Mississauga, Ontario, the subsidiary was formed with the acquisition of Zellers store leases fr ...

where Zellers was, albeit in a smaller format, but it was scrapped upon Target's exit from Canada and space remained vacant until April 14, 2016 when

Marshalls Marshalls is an American chain of off-price department stores owned by TJX Companies. Marshalls has over 1,000 American stores, including larger stores named Marshalls Mega Store, covering 42 states and Puerto Rico, and 61 stores in Canada. Mar ...

and

HomeSense HomeSense (stylized as Homesense in Europe and the United States) is a Canadian chain of discount home furnishing stores owned by TJX Companies. It originated in Canada in 2001, and was expanded to Europe in 2008 and the United States in 2017. O ...

(both owned by

TJX Companies The TJX Companies, Inc. (abbreviated TJX) is an American Multinational corporation, multinational Discount store, off-price department store corporation, headquartered in Framingham, Massachusetts. It was formed as a subsidiary of Zayre, Zayre ...

) and

PetSmart PetSmart is a privately held American chain of pet superstores, which sell pet products, services, and small pets. It is the leading North American pet company, and its direct competitor is Petco. Its indirect competitors are Amazon, Walmart, ...

moved in.

Payless ShoeSource Payless (formerly known as Payless ShoeSource Inc.) is an international discount footwear chain. Established in 1956 by cousins Louis and Shaol Pozez, Payless was a privately held company owned by Blum Capital, and Golden Gate Capital. In 1961, i ...

had a location before it went out of business as a victim of the

retail apocalypse A retail apocalypse is the closing of numerous brick-and-mortar retail stores, especially those of large chains worldwide. It began around 2010, and was severely exacerbated by the mandatory closures during the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2017, over ...

. Other major tenants include

Dollarama Dollarama is a Canadian dollar store retail chain headquartered in Montreal. Since 2009 it is Canada's largest retailer of items for five dollars or less. Dollarama has over 1400 stores and has a presence in every province of Canada; Ontario has ...

The Source ''The Source'' is an American hip hop and entertainment website, and a magazine that publishes annually or . It is the world's longest-running rap periodical, being founded as a newsletter in 1988 by Jonathan Shecter. David Mays was the ma ...

Showcase Showcase or vitrine may refer to: *Cabinet (furniture) *Display case Music * ''Showcase'' (Bill Anderson album), 1964 * ''Showcase'' (Patsy Cline album), 1961 * ''Showcase'' (Buddy Holly album), 1964 * ''Showcase'' (Philly Joe Jones album), 1959 ...

, Structube, and Toys "R" Us Express (the lattermost of which is the successor to the former Toys "R" Us location at

Yonge Eglinton Centre Yonge Eglinton Centre is a complex of two office buildings located on the northwest corner of Yonge and Eglinton in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, including a small shopping concourse. It is located across the street from Canada Square and, at time o ...

, also owned and operated by RioCan).

Renovations

When Zellers became defunct, there were renovations in its former space from 2015 to 2016 to accommodate Marshalls, HomeSense, and PetSmart. Lawrence Square's redevelopment began in September 2017 and was completed in phases by the end of 2018. The transformation consisted of the two levels of retail, the expansion of the food court, and new public washrooms. Lawrence Square Shopping Centre was renamed as Lawrence Allen Centre on October 3, 2019.

Site redevelopment

Old plan

As part of the 20-year plan to redevelop Lawrence Heights that began in 2007 by local city councillor

Howard Moscoe Howard Moscoe (born November 28, 1939)https://gencat4.eloquent-systems.com/webcat/request/Action?SystemName=City+of+Toronto+Archives&UserName=wa+public&Password=&CMD_%28DetailRequest%29 &ProcessID=6000_1980%280%29&KeyValues=KEY_315373 is a former ...

, Lawrence Square was planned to be demolished to make way for a northward extension of Marlee Avenue and for public housing. Two nearby public schools were planned to be demolished to make way for retail uses.

New plan

Later on, councillor Moscoe retired. The new councillor,

Josh Colle Josh Colle () is a Canadian politician. He was the councillor for Ward 15 on Toronto City Council for the years 2010-2018.Lawrence Plaza *

List of shopping malls in Toronto Toronto has several shopping malls across the city, including five major destination malls that are among the largest and profitable in Canada. The first enclosed shopping mall in Toronto was the Toronto Arcade in the downtown core. The first sh ...

References

External links

* {{Shopping Malls in the Golden Horseshoe Shopping malls in Toronto North York Shopping malls established in 1989 Terminating vistas in Canada 1989 establishments in Ontario