Toronto Eaton Centre

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Toronto Eaton Centre
Interior of the Toronto Eaton Centre, looking north. The Canada Geese of Flight Stop are in the foreground.
Mall facts and statistics
Location	Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Opening date	1977 (first phase)
Developer	Cadillac Fairview, TD Bank, Eaton's
Management	Cadillac Fairview
Owner	Cadillac Fairview
No. of stores and services	330
Total retail floor area	1,624,000 square feet (150,000 m²)
Parking	Yonge Parkade, operated by Cadillac Fairview Express (785 spaces)[1]
No. of floors	5
Website	www.torontoeatoncentre.com

The Toronto Eaton Centre is a large shopping mall and office complex in downtown Toronto, Ontario Canada, named after the now-defunct Eaton's department store chain. In terms of the number of visitors, the shopping mall is Toronto's top tourist attraction. [1] It is also the largest shopping mall in Eastern Canada, and third-largest in Canada as a whole.

The Eaton Centre is bounded by Yonge Street on the east, Queen Street West on the south, Dundas Street West on the north, and buildings on the east side of Bay Street on the west. Its interior passages also form part of Toronto's PATH underground pedestrian network, and the centre is served by two TTC stations: Dundas and Queen. The complex also contains three office buildings (at 20 Queen Street West, 250 Yonge Street and 1 Dundas Street West) and the Ryerson University Faculty of Business. Additionally, the Eaton Centre is linked to The Bay department store and to a 17-storey Marriott hotel on Bay Street.

[edit] History

Timothy Eaton founded a dry goods store on Yonge Street in the 19th century, and that small shop went on to revolutionize retailing in Canada, ultimately becoming the largest department store chain in the country. By the 20th century, the Eaton's chain owned most of the land bounded by Yonge, Queen, Bay and Dundas streets, with the notable exceptions of Old City Hall and the Church of the Holy Trinity. The Eaton's land, once the site of Timothy Eaton's first store, was occupied by Eaton's large Main Store, the Eaton's Annex and a number of related mail order and factory buildings. As the chain's warehouse and support operations were increasingly shifting to cheaper suburban locales in the 1960s, Eaton's wanted to make better use of its valuable downtown landholdings. In particular, the chain wanted to build a massive new flagship store to replace the aging Main Store at Yonge and Queen and the Eaton's College Street store a few blocks to the north.

The various Eaton's buildings at Yonge and Queen Streets in 1920, demonstrating the Eaton's landholdings on the current site of the Toronto Eaton Centre.

In the mid-1960s, Eaton's announced plans for a massive office and shopping complex that would occupy several city blocks. Initial plans for the centre called for the demolition of both Old City Hall (except for the clock tower and cenotaph) and the Church of the Holy Trinity, as well as the closing of a number of small city streets within the above-noted block (Albert Street, Louisa Street, Terauley Street, James Street, Albert Lane, Downey's Lane and Trinity Square). At one point, even the City Hall clock tower was slated for demolition. After a fierce local debate over the fate of the city hall and church buildings, Eaton's put its plans on hiatus in 1967.

The Eaton Centre plans were resuscitated in 1971, although these plans allowed for the preservation of Old City Hall. Controversy erupted anew, however, as the congregation of the Church of the Holy Trinity exhibited an increased willingness to fight the demolition plans for its church. Eventually, the Eaton Centre plans were revised to save both Old City Hall and the church, and then revised further when Holy Trinity's parishioners successfully fought to ensure that the new complex would not block all sunlight to the church.

These amendments to the plans resulted in three significant changes to the proposed centre from the initial 1960s concept. First, the new Eaton's store was shifted north to Dundas Street, as the new store would be too large to be accommodated in its traditional location on Queen Street (opposite its rival Simpson's) due to the preservation of City Hall. Fortuitously, this resulted in the mall being constructed with Eaton's and Simpson's acting as anchors at either end. The second significant change was the reduction in the size of the office component, so that the Eaton Centre project no longer represented an attempt to extend the City's financial district north of Queen Street, as the Eaton Family had originally contemplated in the 1960s. Finally, the bulk of the centre was shifted east to the Yonge Street frontage, and the complex was designed so that it no longer had any frontage along Bay Street. Old City Hall and the Church were thus saved, as was the Salvation Army headquarters building by virtue of its location between the two other preserved buildings (although the Salvation Army building was eventually demolished in the late 1990s to make way for an Eaton Centre expansion).

[edit] Construction

Eaton's partnered with the Cadillac Fairview development company and the Toronto-Dominion Bank in the construction of the Eaton Centre. The complex was designed by Eberhard Zeidler and Bregman + Hamann Architects as a multi-levelled, vaulted glass-ceiling galleria, modelled after the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II in Milan, Italy. At the time, the interior design of the Eaton Centre was considered quite revolutionary and influenced shopping centre architecture throughout North America.

The Eaton Centre represented one of North America's first downtown shopping malls. The first phase, including the nine-storey, 1,000,000 square foot (100,000 square metre) Eaton's store, opened in 1977. The temporary wall was at the south end was mirrored over its full height, to give an impression of what the complete galleria would look like. The old Eaton's store at Yonge and Queen was then demolished and the south half of the complex opened in its place in 1979. The same year, the north end of the complex added a multiplex cinema, Cineplex, at the time the largest in the world with 18 screens. (While this original location closed in 2001, the Cineplex Entertainment company that grew from it has become the largest cinema chain in Canada.)

Evening interior of the Toronto Eaton Centre, looking north from the mid-point in the mall.

Terauley Street, Louisa Street, Downey's Lane and Albert Lane were closed and disappeared from the city street grid to make way for the new complex. Albert Street and James Street were preserved only to the extent of their frontage around Old City Hall (although the city of Toronto required that pedestrians be able to cross through the mall where Albert Street once existed, at any time 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and pedestrians still enjoy this right today). Trinity Square lost its public access to Yonge Street, and became a pedestrian-only square with access via Bay Street.

Many urban planners and designers have long lamented the original exterior design of the Eaton Centre. The complex was oriented inwards, with very few street-related retail stores, windows or even mall entrances to animate the exterior. Much of the Yonge Street façade, facing what was once one of Toronto's primary shopping thoroughfares, was dominated by a parking garage. At the insistence of the Metro Toronto government, which had jurisdiction over major roads, the complex was set back from Yonge Street. The goal was to eventually add an additional lane to the street. As a result, the complex was set back a considerable distance from Yonge Street, thus further weakening the centre's streetscape presence.

The office component of the complex was constructed over the years, as follows:

• "One Dundas West" (29 storeys) in 1977, designed by Bregman + Hamann Architects and Zeidler Partnership Architects;
• "Cadillac Fairview Tower" (36 floors) in 1982, designed by Bregman + Hamann Architects, and Zeidler Partnership Architects; and
• "250 Yonge Street" (formerly Eaton Tower) (35 storeys) in 1992, designed by Zeidler Partnership Architects, and Crang & Boake.

[edit] The Eaton Centre today

The Toronto Eaton Centre, looking south along Yonge Street from Dundas Street.

The Toronto Eaton Centre logo

Despite the controversy and criticisms, the centre was an immediate success. In fact, the mall profits were said to be so lucrative that the success of the Eaton Centre has often been credited with keeping the troubled Eaton's chain afloat for another two decades before it finally succumbed to bankruptcy in 1999. Today, the Eaton Centre is one of North America's top shopping destinations, and is Toronto's most popular tourist attraction, attracting over a million visitors a week.

One of the most prominent sights in the shopping mall is the group of fibre glass Canada Geese hanging from the ceiling. This sculpture, named Flight Stop, is the work of artist Michael Snow. It was also the subject of an important intellectual property court ruling. One year, the management of the centre decided to decorate the geese with red ribbons for Christmas, without consulting Snow. Snow objected arguing that the ribbons made his naturalistic work "ridiculous" and harmed his reputation as an artist. Snow sued and in Snow v. The Eaton Centre the court ruled that even though the Centre owned the sculpture, the ribbons had infringed Snow's moral rights. The ribbons were ordered removed.

[edit] Redevelopment

In recent years, the Eaton Centre's owners have redesigned the mall's Yonge Street façade with Murphy Hilgers Architects and Queen's Quay Architects International Inc., bringing it closer to the street and making it more closely resemble an urban shopping district, with stores opening directly onto the street, and presenting a variety of façades to create the perception of an urban streetscape.

Further redevelopments, in the late 1990s and early 2000s, added new retail space at the northeast corner (Yonge and Dundas intersection) of the complex (primarily housing H&M's Canadian flagship store), to the northwest corner (Bay and Dundas intersection) of the complex (primarily housing Ryerson University's Faculty of Business, Canadian Tire and Best Buy) and to the west side of the complex opposite Albert Street. This work was done by Queen's Quay Architects International Inc. with Zeidler Partnership Architects.

There has also been renovations to the west side of the complex opposite Albert Street. There are now about 330 stores in the retail complex, which encompasses about 1,600,000 square feet (150,000 m²), making it possibly the largest downtown shopping centre in North America.

With the demise of the Eaton's chain, the department store space at the north end of the mall is now occupied by Sears Canada, which is the chain's largest store in Canada, at about 817,850 square feet. The complex retains the Eaton Centre name, representing an ongoing tribute to Timothy Eaton and the small shop he once opened at this location.

[edit] See also

Wikimedia Commons has media related to:

Toronto Eaton Centre

• Eaton Centre
• List of Canada's largest shopping malls

[edit] External links

• Official Toronto Eaton Centre Site
• CBC Archives - "Unveiling plans for the Eaton's Centre" (1966 Audio Clip)
• CBC Archives - "Jewel in the Crown" (1977 Video Clip)
• CBC Archives - "A controversial start to the Eaton Centre" (1978 Video Clip)

[edit] Notes

1. ^ Canadian Institute of Steel Construction