Scarborough Town Centre (STC) is a

shopping mall A shopping mall (or simply mall) is a North American term for a large indoor shopping center, usually anchored by department stores. The term "mall" originally meant a pedestrian promenade with shops along it (that is, the term was used to refe ...

Toronto, Ontario 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 ...

, Canada. Central to the

Scarborough City Centre Scarborough City Centre is a commercial district in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It was the central business district for the former city of Scarborough, which amalgamated with Toronto in 1998. Scarborough City Centre remains one of the central bu ...

in the former city of

Scarborough Scarborough or Scarboro may refer to: People * Scarborough (surname) * Earl of Scarbrough Places Australia * Scarborough, Western Australia, suburb of Perth * Scarborough, New South Wales, suburb of Wollongong * Scarborough, Queensland, su ...

, it is adjacent to

Scarborough Centre station Scarborough Centre is a rapid transit station and bus terminal in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, serving Line 3 Scarborough of the Toronto subway system and multiple bus routes of the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC). It is located north of Ellesme ...

, the

Scarborough Centre Bus Terminal Scarborough Centre Bus Terminal is a regional and intercity bus terminal in Scarborough City Centre in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, located near its namesake rapid transit station on Line 3 Scarborough of the Toronto subway. It is served by GO Tr ...

and the

CTV Toronto CFTO-DT (channel 9) is a television station in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, serving as the flagship station of the CTV Television Network. It is owned and operated by network parent Bell Media alongside Barrie-based CTV 2 outlet CKVR-DT, channel 3 ...

studios (

9 Channel Nine Court 9 Channel Nine Court (alternatively known as the CTV Toronto Studios, CFTO-TV Studios, Glen Warren Studios or Bell Media Agincourt and temporarily known as 9 Dave Devall Way) Opened in 1973, the mall is the fourth largest shopping mall in Canada and third in Toronto by retail space.

Description

The mall is located on the north side of

Albert Campbell Square Albert Campbell Square is a public square in Scarborough City Centre in Scarborough, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is named after Albert Campbell, the first mayor of the Borough of Scarborough and former Chairman of the Municipality of Metropol ...

, across from the

Scarborough Civic Centre The Scarborough Civic Centre is a civic centre located in the Scarborough district of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It was designed by architect Raymond Moriyama during the development of Scarborough City Centre and initially opened as the city hall o ...

. The mall is served by

Highway 401 King's Highway 401, commonly referred to as Highway 401 and also known by its official name as the Macdonald–Cartier Freeway or colloquially referred to as the four-oh-one, is a controlled-access 400-series highway in the Canadian provinc ...

and can also be reached through a turnaround ramp on

McCowan Road McCowan can refer to the following: * McCowan Baronets, British baronetcy *Millar McCowan, Scottish confectionery company *McCowan (surname) *McCowan Road McCowan can refer to the following: * McCowan Baronets, British baronetcy * Millar McCowan, ...

, Progress Avenue, and Brimley Road. The TTC's

Line 3 Scarborough Line 3 Scarborough (originally known as the Scarborough RT or SRT) is a light rapid transit line that is part of the Toronto subway system in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The line runs entirely within the suburban district of Scarborough, encompas ...

also has a station adjacent to the mall, Scarborough Centre, opened in 1985 with service running southwest to

Kennedy station Kennedy is both a terminal and interchange station on Line 2 Bloor–Danforth and Line 3 Scarborough of the Toronto subway system. Opened in 1980, it is located east of the Kennedy Road and Eglinton Avenue intersection. With the adjacent Ken ...

on the Bloor–Danforth line and east to

McCowan Station McCowan is a terminal station on Line 3 Scarborough of the Toronto subway. It is located at 1275 McCowan Road, just north of Ellesmere Road at Bushby Drive/Town Centre Court. Both of the surface routes that pass the McCowan station also stop ...

. Scarborough Centre is Toronto's east end's most important transportation hub. In addition to Line 3, Scarborough Centre is a busy terminal for a number of TTC bus routes, as well as

GO Transit GO Transit is a regional public transit system serving the Greater Golden Horseshoe region of Ontario, Canada. With its hub at Union Station in Toronto, GO Transit's green-and-white trains and buses serve a population of more than seven millio ...

. Scarborough Town Centre currently includes Hudson's Bay,

Walmart Walmart Inc. (; formerly Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.) is an American multinational retail corporation that operates a chain of hypermarkets (also called supercenters), discount department stores, and grocery stores from the United States, headquarter ...

, and Cineplex Cinemas as its anchors. It has more than and about 250 plus stores, making it the fourth-largest

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 ...

Greater Toronto The Greater Toronto Area, commonly referred to as the GTA, includes the City of Toronto and the regional municipalities of Durham, Halton, Peel, and York. In total, the region contains 25 urban, suburban, and rural municipalities. The Greater ...

, after

Square One Shopping Centre 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 ...

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 ...

, and

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 ...

. The mall itself and most of the land surrounding it are owned by

OMERS The Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System (OMERS) is a Canadian public pension fund, headquartered in Toronto, Ontario. OMERS is a defined benefit, jointly sponsored, multi-employer public pension plan created in 1962 by Ontario provinc ...

(the Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System) pension fund under their

Oxford Properties Oxford Properties is a Canadian multinational corporation, with operations in real estate investment, development and property management. Its portfolio includes office, retail, industrial, multi-residential, life sciences and hotel assets. Esta ...

division.

Scarborough Walk of Fame

In 2006, ten prominent members of Scarborough's community were inducted into the ''Scarborough Walk of Fame'', and this was the first annual ceremony. The stars (plaques) of the Walk of Fame are located behind the main atrium, in front of H&M. Formerly, they were located on a walkway between the

food court A food court (in Asia-Pacific also called food hall or hawker centre) is generally an indoor plaza or common area within a facility that is contiguous with the counters of multiple food vendors and provides a common area for self-serve dinner. I ...

s of the mall, on the upper level. The first inductees were burn-unit founder Dr. Lloyd N. Carlsen, educator Dr. R. H. King,

NBA The National Basketball Association (NBA) is a professional basketball league in North America. The league is composed of 30 teams (29 in the United States and 1 in Canada) and is one of the major professional sports leagues in the United St ...

player

Jamaal Magloire Jamaal Dane Magloire (born May 21, 1978) is a Canadian former professional basketball player who currently serves as basketball development consultant and community ambassador for the Toronto Raptors. He played 12 seasons in the National Basketbal ...

, pulmonary scientist Dr. Charles C. Macklin, artist

Doris McCarthy Doris McCarthy, LL. D. (July 7, 1910 – November 25, 2010) was a Canadian artist known for her abstracted landscapes. Life and career Born in Calgary, Alberta, McCarthy attended the Ontario College of Art from 1926 to 1930, where she was award ...

Lieutenant Governor of Ontario The lieutenant governor of Ontario (, in French: ''Lieutenant-gouverneur'' (if male) or ''Lieutenante-gouverneure'' (if female) ''de l'Ontario'') is the viceregal representative in Ontario of the , who operates distinctly within the province bu ...

and former television personality, The Honourable

David Onley David Charles Onley (born June 12, 1950) is a former Canadian journalist who served as the 28th Lieutenant Governor of Ontario

, Olympic hockey player

Vicky Sunohara Vicky Sunohara (born May 18, 1970) is a Canadian ice hockey coach, former ice hockey player, and three-time Olympic medallist. She has been described as "the Wayne Gretzky of women's hockey" and is recognized as a trailblazer and pioneer for the ...

, pioneer David Thomson, hip-hop artist

Wes Williams Wesley "Wes" Williams (born March 31, 1968) is a Canadian rapper, record producer, actor, and author. He is known professionally by his stage names Maestro Fresh Wes (formerly Maestro Fresh-Wes) or Maestro as a musician, and is credited by his ...

, and geriatric care entrepreneur Dr.

Joseph Yu Kai Wong Joseph Yu Kai Wong () is a Canadian physician and philanthropist. He founded the Yee Hong Centre for Geriatric Care in 1987. He served as the chairman for the United Way of Greater Toronto from 1990 to 1992 and has been honorary chair since 1994 ...

History

The

mall Mall commonly refers to a: * Shopping mall * Strip mall * Pedestrian street * Esplanade Mall or MALL may also refer to: Places Shopping complexes * The Mall (Sofia) (Tsarigradsko Mall), Sofia, Bulgaria * The Mall, Patna, Patna, Bihar, India ...

was constructed in 1972 and opened on May 2, 1973. At that time it included two major Canadian

department store A department store is a retail establishment offering a wide range of consumer goods in different areas of the store, each area ("department") specializing in a product category. In modern major cities, the department store made a dramatic app ...

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. ...

and

Eaton's The T. Eaton Company Limited, later known as Eaton's, 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 ...

Miracle Food Mart Miracle Food Mart was a supermarket chain in Ontario, Canada, owned by Steinberg's, a Quebec-based retailer in the 1970s and 1980s. Steinberg purchased the Canadian division of Grand Union, with 38 stores, in June 1959 to make its entrance int ...

, a

supermarket A supermarket is a self-service Retail#Types of outlets, shop offering a wide variety of food, Drink, beverages and Household goods, household products, organized into sections. This kind of store is larger and has a wider selection than earli ...

was also located in the mall; part of the Steinbergs chain, it was co-located with a

Miracle Mart Miracle Mart was a chain of discount department stores with locations in Ontario and Quebec, Canada based in Saint-Laurent, Quebec. The chain was renamed to simply M in the mid-1980s. History The company was founded in early 1961 as Miracle Mart ...

, a discount department store. It was designed to serve as part of the civic and commercial centre of what was then the Borough of Scarborough. Scarborough Town Centre opened with 130 stores adjacent to the borough's administration buildings. It provided a central landmark in an otherwise newer suburban area of Toronto. Originally Y-shaped, with its stem towards the Civic Centre, a second phase of construction added the northern department store (former The Bay store) and two wings. The construction added of retail space, and was opened on August 8, 1979. It made STC the second shopping mall in history (after Quebec's

Promenades Saint-Bruno Promenades St-Bruno (corporately known as CF 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. L ...

) to simultaneously have Eaton's, Simpson's and The Bay. In 1991, Simpson's rebranded as The Bay. The former The Bay store was emptied and extensively refurbished before reopening on September 25, 1991 as a

Sears Sears, Roebuck and Co. ( ), commonly known as Sears, is an American chain of department stores founded in 1892 by Richard Warren Sears and Alvah Curtis Roebuck and reincorporated in 1906 by Richard Sears and Julius Rosenwald, with what began a ...

with essentially the same staff as the previous occupant. It was the largest of the eight locations that Sears acquired from the dismantling of the Simpsons chain. In 1998-1999, the mall was expanded once again to allow more anchor stores and retail space. After Eaton's closed, Sears relocated on July 17, 2000 to the space, becoming one of the company's largest stores nationwide. Walmart opened its 160,000 square foot store on July 26, 2001. The mall's latest renovation in 2010, branded "Lighten Up," gave retailers such as

Victoria's Secret Victoria's Secret is an American lingerie, clothing, and beauty retailer known for high visibility marketing and branding, starting with a popular catalog and followed by an annual fashion show with supermodels dubbed Angels. As the largest ret ...

interests in retail space. Victoria's Secret have opened one of Canada's first Pink stores in the former

Disney Store The Disney Store is a chain of specialty stores selling only Disney related items, many of them exclusive, under its own name and Disney Outlet. It was a business unit of Disney Consumer Products with the Disney Parks, Experiences and Products s ...

in July 2010. Other major retailers,

Forever 21 Forever 21 is a multinational fast fashion retailer headquartered in Los Angeles, California, United States. Originally founded as the store Fashion 21 in Highland Park, Los Angeles in 1984,Forever 21History & Facts, n.d. Retrieved 27 April 2014 ...

and

Aritzia Aritzia LP is a Canadian women's fashion brand founded in Vancouver, British Columbia, by Brian Hill in 1984. Aritzia sells a variety of lifestyle apparel through various upscale retail stores across Canada and the United States and online. ...

, have replaced

Sport Chek Sport Chek is the largest Canadian retailer of sporting clothing and sports equipment, with 191 stores throughout Canada as of 2020. It is the only national big box sporting goods retailer in Canada, although it is absent in the Northwest Territ ...

and Birks. The mall has the largest Zara store in the east GTA at . On August 4, 2016, the new food court opened below the existing food court and was branded as TASTE MRKT. The upper level of the food court is now closed and has reopened as a mall space with unique dining atmosphere for shoppers by offering more upscale, interior-patio style seating underneath the existing skylight. The Sears store closed in late 2017 as part of the liquidation of Canadian operations. The Sears store is expected to be redeveloped by the mall in the future, though they have not yet said what is planned. The 1st floor has been remodeled into

Urban Behavior Urban Behavior also spelled Behaviour is a unisex apparel retailer in Canada with a focus on club wear. The chain was founded in 1989 by Arif Noor.Muji (), or is a Japanese retail company which sells a wide variety of household and consumer goods. Muji's design philosophy is minimalist, and it places an emphasis on recycling, reducing production and packaging waste, and a no-logo or "no-bran ...

store near the Centre Court. The store is the 5th in the GTA. A Miniso also opened outside of Walmart, in the former

Roots Canada Roots Corporation (doing business as Roots) is a publicly held Canadian brand that sells apparel, leather bags, small leather goods, footwear, athletic wear, and home furnishings. The company was founded in 1973 in Toronto, Ontario, by Michael ...

, which has relocated next to

. In February 2021, it was announced that the second level of the former Sears location had been prepared as a large-scale clinic for distribution of the

COVID-19 vaccine A COVID19 vaccine is a vaccine intended to provide acquired immunity against severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS‑CoV‑2), the virus that causes coronavirus disease 2019 ( COVID19). Prior to the COVID19 pandemic, an e ...

during the

COVID-19 pandemic in Toronto The COVID-19 pandemic in Toronto is an ongoing viral pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), a novel infectious disease caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). Toronto is the most populous city in Can ...

Proposed development

Currently, multiple plans are proposed for the shopping mall and its surroundings.

Scarborough Subway Extension

The extension of TTC's

Line 2 Bloor-Danforth Line most often refers to: * Line (geometry), object with zero thickness and curvature that stretches to infinity * Telephone line, a single-user circuit on a telephone communication system Line, lines, The Line, or LINE may also refer to: Arts ...

subway line is currently under construction, which will extend the line 7.8 kilometers. The extension will start from

and go north towards McCowan Road and Sheppard Avenue with a station at the centre. This will replace the current Line 3 Scarborough that passes through the centre. The extension is expected to be complete around 2030.

Redevelopment of the centre

A proposal was created by Oxford Properties to redevelop the centre. For the first phase, the existing Cineplex Cinemas would be demolished to create space for the subway extension to the mall and a new transit hub. The current theatre would be replaced with a new movie theatre adjacent to the former Sears location. The Sears location would be renovated and divided into at least 18 retail units with three levels. A pedestrian walkway will connect the mall with the new movie theatre.

References

External links

Oxford Properties Group
{{Shopping Malls in the Golden Horseshoe Shopping malls in Toronto Walks of fame Commercial buildings completed in 1973 Buildings and structures in Scarborough, Toronto Oxford Properties