WHITBY MALL: WHITBY, ON
Brian Heiler's Commentary
Posted December 3, 2005 (user submitted October 25, 2005)
The Whitby Mall was built in the 1960's in the thriving bedroom community of
Whitby, Ontario, Canada.
In it's heyday it featured all the retail anchors, Woolco, LCBO (Canada's
liquor stores), Bank, Barber shop, Cleaners, Grocery Store, several busy
restaraunts and many independant businesses (Including my family's shoe store)
In the seventies until the late eighties the mall was thriving despite it
having more of a lowbrow appeal.
By the ninties, Wal-Mart moved in and the bank, Liquor and Grocery Stores had
pulled out. A bank was added to the front but it no longer required mall
access.
The mall started to rot away and by the mid 1990's contained no less than 7
dollar stores which was about 1/3 of it's total stores.
In 2003, I took my kids to see the Whitby Mall Santa because there was no line,
this was probably the only kid he'd seen all day.
By 2004, Wal-Mart pulled out and the remaining businesses started to disappear.
The Lang Office tower (which was built in the 1980's) also lost it's main
tenants that year.
After a long period of nothing, the former Woolco site is now split into a 24
hour Grocery store (with no mall connection) and a "Hart" store which is pretty
much a Woolco.
The mall itself now has a passport office and is at about 40% capacity at any
time with the other stores being a sports card store, half price books, East
Indian fashions (one of the few original business left) a Quiznos, A cruise
line, Indian rugs and the last remaining Dollar store.