| Golden Mile | |
|---|---|
| — Neighbourhood — | |
| The Golden Mile along Eglinton | |
| The industrial areas of the Golden Mile | |
| Coordinates: | |
| Country | Canada |
| Province | Ontario |
| City | Toronto |
| Community | Scarborough |
| Changed Municipality | 1998 Toronto from Scarborough |
| Government | |
| • MP | Dan Harris (Scarborough Southwest) |
| • MPP | Lorenzo Berardinetti (Scarborough Southwest) |
| • Councillor | Michelle Berardinetti, Ward 35 Scarborough Southwest & Michael Thompson, Ward 37 Scarborough Centre |
The Golden Mile in the Scarborough district of Toronto, Ontario, Canada, is a stretch of Eglinton Avenue East that is the site of intensive industrial and commercial development. It was one of Canada's first model industrial parks. The original Golden Mile of Industry ran along Eglinton from Pharmacy Avenue east to Birchmount Road.
The area was farmland prior to World War II with settlement by Scottish immigrants beginning in the 1820s (notably by the likes of the McCowans and Thompsons) and prior to settlements by Europeans in the late 1700s was mostly covered by forests. In the 1940s 250 acres were acquired by the federal government to build munitions plants. In 1941 General Engineering Company of Ontario (GECO) a massive munitions plant was constructed covering the area northwest of Eglinton and Warden. The facility was located in the area, which was then far from the city, to protect against accidental detonations. At its peak 5,300 people worked at the plant and 256,567,485 munitions were produced over the course of the war.[1] Following the war, the area and 14 buildings was purchased from the federal government by the Township of Scarborough. The township built municipal office, library along Eglinton and sold the rest to private industry to develop the area as "The Golden Mile", patterned after the Golden Mile in London, England. In the 1950s and 1960s, numerous factories producing mostly consumer goods operated along the Golden Mile.
Golden Mile Plaza was added west of the industrial "mile" in the mid 1950s and was visited in 1959 [2] by Queen Elizabeth II marking the further transformation of the area into a series of strip malls. The original strip mall on the north of Eglinton Avenue was anchored with a Famous Players movie theatre located at Pharmacy Avenue and Eglinton. The west section of the strip was severely damaged by a fire in the 1980s, which hastened the beginning of the transformation of the area into one of Toronto's largest concentrations of power centres and big box stores.
Currently the newer Golden Mile Mall is struggling with both the downturn of the economy and the departure of many mainstay tenants. In 2009, Zellers, which represented a full half of the square footage of the mall, left for a new stand-alone location 2 km farther east. Earlier in 2008, Fabricland, which is considered a bottom-feeder of strip-malls, also left for greener pastures.
Toronto Employment and Social Services opened a new office at the Golden Mile Mall in 2010, moving the mall furthur down market, and opening talks to redevelop the property into highrise condos.
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