Square One Shopping Centre
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Square One Shopping Centre | |
 |
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| Mall facts and statistics | |
|---|---|
| Location | Mississauga, Ontario, Canada |
| Opening date | 1973 |
| Developer | OMERS/Oxford Properties Group |
| Management | OMERS/Oxford Properties Group |
| Owner | OMERS/Oxford Properties Group |
| No. of stores and services | 360+ |
| No. of anchor tenants | 4 (Wal-Mart, The Bay, Sears, Zellers) |
| Total retail floor area | 1,614,125 square feet (150,000 m²) |
| Parking | 8,450 spaces + |
| No. of floors | 2 |
| Website | shopsquareone.com |
Square One Shopping Centre is a shopping mall located in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada. It is one of the largest shopping malls in Canada, with over 1.6 million square feet (150,000 m²) of retail space and more than 360 stores and services. On average, the mall serves over 21 million customers each year.
Square One is located at 100 City Centre Drive in central Mississauga, about 20 minutes from downtown Toronto and 15 minutes from Toronto's Pearson International Airport. Square One's location is adjacent to the interchange of Highway 403 and Hurontario Street (Highway 10). To relieve traffic volumes on that junction, the service road Centre View Drive on the south side of Highway 403 was opened in 1993, improving access to the Mavis Road exit with Highway 403.
The mall is in very close proximity to the Mississauga Civic Centre and the Mississauga Living Arts Centre, both of which are located right across from the mall. Also located near the mall are residential condominiums, Mississauga's Central Library, a large Chapters bookstore and a 13-screen theatre featuring IMAX (separate from the theatre located inside the mall). The area near the mall is thus a unique mixture of residential, government, and entertainment and retail-related commercial areas.
Located within the mall grounds is the main terminal of the Mississauga Transit bus network, which was opened in 1997.
Each year, between June and October, part of the mall parking lot hosts a large farmers' market where farmers from around Ontario come to sell their produce. The market is open on Fridays and Sundays. For the 2006 season, the market was moved from its previous location at the far end of the Wal-Mart parking lot to its new location, the parking lot located between The Bay and the Mississauga Civic Centre.
Square One is currently owned and managed by the OMERS Realty Management Corporation through the Oxford Properties Group.
[edit] History
Excavation of the Square One site began in 1969. Current mayor of Mississauga Hazel McCallion, who at that time was mayor of the nearby Village of Streetsville (now part of Mississauga), attended the ground-breaking ceremony, which was held in the middle of a hayfield. The mall, in fact, predates the City of Mississauga itself by one year. Mississauga's city centre has since grown around Square One, as planned prior to construction.
Major construction finished in mid-1973, having costed only $44-million. In October 1973, Square One opened, having 169 shops and services, including four major retailers: Dominion, Sears, The Bay and Woolco (a subsidiary of Woolworth's).
During the 1980s, the mall underwent numerous expansions, adding 80 more stores and over a million square feet to the property. In the mid 1990s, Woolco closed. The Woolco location was transformed into one of the world's largest Wal-Mart stores (2 floors, 220,000 sq ft).
Between 2000 and 2003, a new expansion termed Cityside was completed. This latest expansion added 320,000 square feet of retail space to the mall, as well as an additional 370,000 square feet for parking. New stores opened included Old Navy, Home Outfitters and Tommy Hilfiger. A new Cineplex Odeon movie theatre was also opened. In 2005, the theatre was bought by the Empire Theatres chain.
In 2004/2005, a major $32-million style renovation of much of the mall began. Besides giving much of the original parts of the mall a new look and feel, the renovation project divides Square One into three distinct "neighbourhoods", with carpeted "transition areas" located in between.
To coincide with the renovation, many new stores have been opened including H&M, Swarovski, Sephora, FCUK and Marciano.
