Unlike at Yorkdale, where ongoing renovations erase all evidence of what once was, Toronto Eaton Centre‘s history is all around if you know where to look. The view from Senior Marketing Director Meredith Vlitas’ office window is not the turquoise glass condos of 21st century Toronto, nor the concrete slabs of the 20th century. Instead, you see the neo-Gothic Church of the Holy Trinity. When it was built in 1847 it was around the same height as the rest of the neighbourhood, but the city, and in particular Timothy Eaton’s commercial empire, grew up around it.
When planning the centre in the early 1970’s, Eaton’s and partner Cadillac Fairview hoped to demolish the church. The congregation rebelled. Not only did the developers work around Holy Trinity and lower the height of the planned office towers so it wouldn’t be plunged into shadow, but promised to retain the lane that led to the church from Yonge Street as a pathway through the mall. Called Albert’s Way, the path is always open.
“We have our standard business hours,” Vlitas explains, “but technically we’re never closed because those doors are always open. By law, they have to be.”
Vlitas came to work at the Centre in 2011 just after the last big renovation, which brought in Victoria’s Secret, Juicy Couture, Michael Kors, and a fancy new food court. She’s proud to work at a shopping centre that is more than just a place to shop but a destination in of itself. The Centre is near the top of Toronto visitors’ lists of places to visit. At any given point, about a quarter of the people at the Eaton Centre are tourists.
“There’s a sense of pride in Toronto Eaton Centre, I think because it is so part of the urban fabric. We’re very much seen as one of the icons.”
The irony of the Eaton Centre’s creation is that, before becoming a historic and celebrated Toronto landmark, the developers sought to destroy a handful of others. It wasn’t just Holy Trinity that faced the potential wrecking ball. During the 1960’s the Eaton family’s initial plan was to move west as well as north, tearing down their original department store, the church, everything between Queen and Dundas on Yonge, and Old City Hall, an intricate Romanesque building from 1899. They offered to preserve the clock tower at first, but then even that was thrown into the demolition. Watching the CBC news clips of the planners nonchalantly declaring that Old City Hall just had to go reminds you of how easy it was in this period to destroy Toronto history. You might argue that it still is.
The original block
Fortunately, public protest and city council inaction (it can sometimes be a good thing), led to Eaton’s shelving the plan. As Daniel Stoffman writes in The Cadillac Fairview Story, when the developers got involved in the late 1960’s their first condition was scrap the plans to demolish Old City Hall. Their next suggestion was a little harder for Eaton’s to stomach–they wanted to move the flagship department store from its traditional spot across from Simpson’s (now Hudson’s Bay) on Queen up to Dundas. The Eaton’s executives balked. Why would they give Queen Street to the competition?
“You have to do if for your own good,” Leo Kolber of Fairview said. “The land you are buying north of the existing store would be worth much less if there is no anchor at the other end. If the two department stores are across the street from each other, who is going to go north? What’s going to attract them? A shopping centre is really about magnets…People go from magnet to magnet.”
Eaton’s relented. Even with Old City Hall and Holy Trinity persevered, there were plenty of properties that needed to be acquired and destroyed. One building on Yonge Street had been left to the University of Toronto by a woman who stipulated that the school was to never sell it to Eaton’s. (Perhaps she once had trouble returning a purchase.) A judge overruled it. It’d be easy to mourn the loss of the old buildings that lined the west side of Yonge Street, but by the 1970’s they housed a tawdry mix of discount stores and sex shops, so pretty much what Yonge Street is like north of the Eaton Centre.
Rather than replicating the suburban malls sweeping the continent, architect Eberhard Zeidler had a better idea–to create a new street that, while indoors, made you feel like you were outside. With Milan’s Galleria Vittorio Emanuele as inspiration, Zeidler designed a series of elegant walkways covered by a glass ceiling. If Toronto Eaton Centre, boxed in on both sides, couldn’t be wide it could at least be tall, with visitors’ eyes soaring upwards as they do in a cathedral. Built during the era of Brutalism, the Centre is remarkable for its airiness and optimism. Zeidler also designed Ontario Place. For me, the two places represent a time when Toronto still believed in itself.
Toronto Eaton Centre circa 1978
The design was hailed as an instant classic, approved by no less than civic activist Jane Jacobs. It’s a testament to the original design that the centre could go so long without major renovations. By the 1990’s, it would have to evolve and adapt if it were to not end up frozen in time like Michael Snow’s geese. When Eaton’s declared bankruptcy, it was time to renovate. Sears took over the Eaton’s box and the underperforming Cineplex closed to be replaced by a Canadian Tire and the Ryerson School of Business.
There was even talk of changing the name, but the owners wisely recognized the name Eaton’s was iconic. (Even if, as Vlitas jokes, old timers continue to phone and ask if they can use an Eaton’s credit card.)
The most obvious change is the dramatic Times Square-style entrance at the H&M on the north end. It wasn’t the first H&M in Canada, but for many it was their introduction to the Swedish retailing giant. In 2010, a $120-million renovation replaced the floors, improved lighting and restrooms, and spearheaded green initiatives– although I don’t know what could be more green than the Eaton Centre in the 1980’s (back then there were so many potted ferns, the place looked like a green house).
Toronto Eaton Centre has been lucky. Built at a time when retailers were abandoning downtown for the suburban mall, it became a destination and an institution, and has lived long enough to benefit from the condo boom.
“There’s so much development going up around Toronto Eaton Centre,” Vlitas acknowledges. “It’s fabulous for us, but by the same token, we also know that consumers are fickle.” Research shows that customers are not “centre-loyal.” “We can’t just assume that just because they live across the street they’re always going to shop here.”
Unlike most shopping centres, Toronto Eaton Centre has its peak hours during the daytime when downtown is filled with workers. Vlitas explains that the centre’s number one target market is the 35 to 44-year-old white-collar professional female with “the presence of children in the home.” It doesn’t matter how many kids or what ages, but the simple presence of children “makes a big impact on shopping behavior.” Being right downtown where this group works helps explain why the Centre’s Ann Taylor outperformed New York’s Ann Taylor on Black Friday.
Vlitas likes to say there’s no vacancies at Toronto Eaton Centre, that shops simply shuffle around locations. But there’s one giant exception and it sits atop the Centre like a castle on a hill. When I ask about future plans for the underperforming Sears, Vlitas’ answer is studiedly opaque.
“Obviously, they’re on a lease. That lease is continuing for several more years. We’re working with Sears to optimize the space. Realistically, it’s kind of one of those things where…Sears is here. They’re a part of the fabric of Toronto Eaton Centre. Will it stay that way forever? Doubtful. I think the landscape will definitely change over the next five, ten, fifteen years. It’s hard to say how things will play out with Sears.”
Likely, Sears will be replaced by a high-end retailer like Nordstrom or Holt Renfrew. Vlitas cites Anne Taylor and J.Crew as clothing stores that have done really well at Toronto Eaton Centre, but implies some of the older retailers have thrown up their hands at the American competition.
“I think as there’s more competition in the market, you have a lot more international and American retailers coming in, and online shopping as well, it makes the business tough. And especially if you’re in the department store business you’re incredibly challenged…When I was a kid, Saturdays it was all about going down to the Bay or Eaton’s with my Mom, that was what I grew up with. But I don’t think the kids now are growing up with that.”
Toronto Eaton Centre has done a good job of staying up to date, especially with social media. After the food court shootings last summer, Twitter proved to be an effective way to update the media and the public on what was going on. Forced to work around the pre-existing urban fabric, Eaton Centre became a beloved part of it. Couples pose in front of the flying geese for their wedding photos and for many young immigrants to the city, the Eaton Centre is where you go to hang out. It’s Toronto to them.
And yet, as I wander the different floors, I see stores designed to look like wood-paneled Nantucket clubhouses and others with flat screen videos of sun-soaked Californian surfers. One window display has t-shirts with stars and stripes and the phrase ‘American youth.’ A Canadian institution, still bearing the name of a 19th century dry goods merchant, has survived into the new century, but at what cost?
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Max Mosher writes about style for Toronto Standard. You can follow him on Twitter at @max_mosher_.
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