LAWRENCE PLAZA

'Lawrence Plaza' is one of the first shopping centres in Canada. It was built on the North-West corner of Bathurst Street and Lawrence Avenue (in Toronto) around 1953, an area then considered to be northern toronto. The mall was visited by Queen Elizabeth II in the 1950s as a post-war visit, in an effort to revitalize canadian culture after the downtroden atomsphere caused by the war.
The majority of the plaza consists of single level stores (with some offices on the second floor), except for the two level building on the corner, which originally was a Morgan's store, and then for many years was home to one of the branches of the Hudson's Bay Company (The Bay). The corner building now houses a Dominion Stores (Ontario) supermarket and a Winners both of which have found the location to be amongst their most thriving branches.
For many years a large area on the South side of Lawrence Avenue was a delapatated overflow parking lot catering to those wishing to shop in the plaza. This was sold off, and now houses two multi-storey residential buildings and some townhouses.
Around 1995, the plaza was slated to have a major renovation, which would have resulted in a staged demolition and rebuild of the entire premises. However, this did not happen, but in recent years several of the companies have made significant renovations of their stores, resulting in new life for the premises.
It is served by two bus stops on Lawrence Avenue directly adjacent to the plaza, and two more stops on Bathurst Street, within one minute's walk. In addition, there is a local wheelchair accessible community bus that stops within the plaza.
Currently, road work is under way in the lawrence and Bathurst area where the plaza is situated causing traffic to be confined to a mere two lanes for traffic moving in both directions. Repavement of the road is expected to be finshed sometime in late January.

Contents

Current tenants

Former tenants

External links

Current tenants

★ Scotiabank

★ Perly Travel

★ [Centre for Mediated Learning]

★ Shopper's Drug Mart

★ The Shoe Company

★ TD Canada Trust

★ The Source by Circuit City

★ Blockbuster (movie rental store)

★ Cash Converters

★ CIBC

★ Phantom Hosiery

★ Second Cup

★ Dominion supermarket

★ Winners

★ United Bakers Dairy Restaurant

Former tenants

★ Sportmart - US chain operated briefly during the short stay in Canada at the former HBC site

★ Morgans > The Bay HBC

External links

★ Lawrence Manor

★ TTC 400 Lawrence Manor Community Bus

★ Hudson's Bay Company History