CF Markville, also known as Markville Shopping Centre in the

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 ...

chain of malls, 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 ...

of over 140 stores in

Markham, Ontario Markham () is a city in the Regional Municipality of York, Ontario, Canada. It is approximately northeast of Downtown Toronto. In the 2021 Census, Markham had a population of 338,503, which ranked it the largest in York Region, fourth largest ...

, Canada. It is located at the intersection of Highway 7 East and

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, ...

. Its anchors are Hudson's Bay,

Winners Winners Merchants International L.P is a chain of off-price Canadian department stores owned by TJX Companies. It offers brand name clothing, footwear, bedding, furniture, fine jewelry, beauty products, and housewares. Products are at a 20-60 ...

, Walmart Supercentre, Decathlon, Sporting Life,

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. M ...

, Uniqlo, Best Buy, and a

Toys "R" Us Toys "R" Us is an American toy, clothing, and baby product retailer owned by Tru Kids (doing business as Tru Kids Brands) and various others. The company was founded in 1957; its first store was built in April 1948, with its headquarters loc ...

/Babies "R" Us combo store. It has a

gross leasable area In architecture, construction, and real estate, floor area, floor space, or floorspace is the area (measured as square feet or square metres) taken up by a building or part of it. The ways of defining "floor area" depend on what factors of the buil ...

of . It was the largest shopping mall in

York Region The Regional Municipality of York, also called York Region, is a regional municipality in Southern Ontario, Canada, between Lake Simcoe and Toronto. The region was established after the passing of then Bill 102, An Act to Establish The Regional M ...

until 2004 when

Vaughan Mills Vaughan Mills is a regional outlet mall located at the southeast quadrant of the Ontario Highway 400, Highway 400 and York Regional Road 73, Rutherford Road interchange in Vaughan, Ontario, just south of Canada's Wonderland. It is one of the Lis ...

opened.

History

The shopping centre was developed by JDS Development and opened in 1982. The mall was named for its proximity to the historical villages of Markham and Unionville (now both incorporated in the city of Markham). The name was originally planned to be called Markville Town Centre. The site of the mall was originally a nursery garden. It was once part of the 100 acres Lot 11 for George Eckhart up to 1862 and Eckhart estate thereafter. Once the land was acquired, it was two decades before construction started. High-rises and government buildings were planned to be built around the shopping centre, but the plan was not passed. The original ground floor featured an artificial waterway and a central reflecting pool with a water fountain that spouted a two storey column. The Pool could be drained for special occasions and in the holiday season would become Santa's Workshop. Among its initial tenants were the Eaton's department store, and a

Famous Players Famous Players Limited Partnership, DBA Famous Players, is a Canadian-based subsidiary of Cineplex Entertainment. As an independent company, it existed as a film exhibitor and cable television service provider. Famous Players operated numerous m ...

4-screen cinema. The mall was renovated in 1991 as part of an expansion because more American retailers were entering Canada.

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 ...

and Hudsons Bay were included in this expansion project. The space was nearly doubled from to over according to the

Yellow Pages The yellow pages are telephone directories of businesses, organized by category rather than alphabetically by business name, in which advertising is sold. The directories were originally printed on yellow paper, as opposed to white pages for ...

. The mall is now owned by Cadillac Fairview since 1997. Best Buy, which opened in 2003, was originally a

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 in ...

supermarket. Walmart entered the mall in 1994 with two levels. They expanded their lower level in 2004. The upper level became Winners. Markville was renovated by

EllisDon EllisDon is an employee-owned construction services company that was founded and incorporated in 1951 in London, Ontario, Canada, by brothers Don and David Ellis Smith. The company is headquartered in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada. History ...

for million from 2011-2013. The renovation coincided with an initiative to add new brands to Canada or the Greater Toronto Area. of the common area was renovated, including new glass railings, flooring, washrooms, and removing the lower level rivers. of existing tenant space was renovated with high-end tenants. The renovation included the installation of of porcelain tile flooring and 12,000 linear feet of glass handrails. A new food court known as the "Express Eatery" opened on August 23, 2012, next to the former Sears store on the lower level. The upper-level food court next to Best Buy has been remodelled into shop space. According to EllisDon, this was the most challenging aspect of the renovation. Sears closed on February 28, 2015. The upper level of the former Sears space opened as

Saks Off 5th Saks can refer to: *Saks (surname) *Saks, Alabama, a community in the United States *Saks, Inc., holding company of Saks Fifth Avenue *Saks Fifth Avenue, U.S. luxury department store See also * * *Sachs *Sachse (disambiguation) *Sacks (surname) *Sa ...

on March 8, 2018, while the lower level opened as Marshalls on September 24, 2019. Saks Off 5th closed on April 16, 2022, and it was replaced by Decathlon on November 24, 2022.

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 Terri ...

closed in 2012 and was replaced by Forever 21. Forever 21 closed in Spring 2018 to make way for Japanese retailer Uniqlo to open in its Canadian expansion, one of the four new locations in Canada. Uniqlo opened on October 12, 2018. A few Chinese retailers have opened in the mall, including Hong Kong-based Lukfook Jewellery, Osim, and Chinese-based Miniso. On April 5, 2021, the Porsche dealer which is located just outside the mall near Saks Off 5th, opened.

Transportation access

The mall is accessible by

York Region Transit York Region Transit (YRT) is the public transit operator in York Region, Ontario, Canada. Its headquarters are in Richmond Hill, at 50 High Tech Road. YRT operates 65 full-time, rush hour and limited routes, 35 school services, and six Viva bu ...

(YRT)/ Viva,

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 larges ...

and

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 ...

. Most YRT routes stop close to the mall on the southside with only VIVA buses stopping along Highway 7. TTC route also stops on McCowan Road. GO Transit buses stop along Bullock Drive and GO Centennial riders on Stouffville rail line need to walk across Bullock to access the mall.

Gallery

File:MarkvilleShoppingCentre4.jpg, CF Markville Atrium File:MarkvilleMallFoodCourt.JPG, Old CF Markville food court before it was relocated in 2012 ( A&W,

Manchu Wok Manchu Wok Inc. is a Canadian fast food restaurant chain that specializes in Chinese fusion cuisine. The brand operates 57 locations across eight Canadian provinces and 13 in the US. The chain operates in shopping malls, airports and some US mil ...

New York Fries New York Fries is a Canadian quick service restaurant that mainly serves french fries, hot dogs and poutine. There are 120 locations in Canada, as well as locations in Bahrain, China, Egypt, Macao, Oman, Panama, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey ...

, and KFC can be seen) File:Tesla Chargers In Markville.jpg, Tesla Chargers in CF Markville

Anchors

File:HudsonsBayMarkville.jpg, Hudson's Bay File:MarkvilleWalmart.JPG, Walmart File:BestBuyMarkville.jpg, Best Buy File:MarkvilleWinners.jpg, Winners and Former HomeSense File:SportingLifeMarkvilleMall.jpg, Sporting Life File:MarkvilleSears.JPG, Former Sears File:MarkvilleAppleStore.JPG,

Apple Store The Apple Store is a chain of retail stores owned and operated by Apple Inc. The stores sell various Apple products, including Mac personal computers, iPhone smartphones, iPad tablet computers, Apple Watch smartwatches, Apple TV digital me ...

References

External links

Markville Shopping Centre website

{{Cadillac Fairview Shopping malls in the Regional Municipality of York Shopping malls established in 1982 Buildings and structures in Markham, Ontario Tourist attractions in Markham, Ontario 1982 establishments in Ontario Cadillac Fairview