Rexdale Plaza

[J-M-Z]

Despite living next door to a Price Chopper and Fortinos on Albion road, my family made frequent drives to Knob Hill Farms every other weekend, it seemed.
The deals on steaks and other meat products were just too good to pass up.

Who can forget the fountain out front? or the wall murals by the cashier (which also doubled as a restaurant, if I recall)? Of course, the main attraction for me
as a youngster was seeing the trains deliver food products to the terminal.

Sadly, my last memory of Knob Hill was the terminal being converted into a Liquidation outlet in the late 90's - early 2000's In a way, the former Zellers in Rexdale
Plaza now is essentially suffering the same fate.. Just a prolonged fate that never seems to end.

In the next 20 years, I can see Rexdale Plaza repurposed as a condominium, too.

 

[J-M-Z]

Copied over from the Woodbine Centre thread. With $333 million dollars in unpaid loans, plus another $30 million in unpaid taxes,
the fate of the Rexdale Mall is now in question.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/article-romspen-private-mortgage-courts/

After nearly 70 years in the neighbourhood, this could be the final nail that brings an end to the Rexdale Mall once and for all.

 

[Vaucluse]

Does anyone recall the underground parking at Rexdale Plaza? It's under the north building that used to be Towers/Zellers. I just rode my bike there and did a roll through the parking, only the first level is accessible, I believe that there's three levels. I remember as a child my parents parking on the 2nd level and that there was a ramp further down but that's all.
My questions are: how many levels are there? Why make underground parking anyway?
There area was greenfield, one level under a store may make sense but three levels? Why the expense of going underground?

 

[J-M-Z]

Does anyone recall the underground parking at Rexdale Plaza? It's under the north building that used to be Towers/Zellers. I just rode my bike there and did a roll through the parking, only the first level is accessible, I believe that there's three levels. I remember as a child my parents parking on the 2nd level and that there was a ramp further down but that's all.
My questions are: how many levels are there? Why make underground parking anyway?
There area was greenfield, one level under a store may make sense but three levels? Why the expense of going underground?

Underground parking was added to the Rexdale Mall during the mall's enclosure in 1972. Towers was added as an extension during the mall's renovations, with Dominion sitting as an anchor at the opposite end
of the mall.

With Dominion, a 'space-age' conveyor belt system brought groceries down to the underground parking lot. I can't recall how many floors either end had. Though, I did find these photos
displaying the underground parking lot where Dollarama/Walmart now reside. The photos were taken during the mall's second demolition in February of 2004:

The underground parking lot where Dominion used to reside. The above photo shows Burrard rd. on the right.

From the looks of it, the parking garage had two floors.

A zoomed-out shot of the same location.

Why install underground parking? At one point in time, the Rexdale Mall was once a popular shopping destination in Rexdale. Major chains like Towers, Woolco
Coles and Dominion brought in a lot of shoppers. The only competition Rexdale Mall had was Kmart opening up in the nearby Albion Mall.

Yet, no other mall in the area that I can think of has underground parking. I guess Rexdale Mall served as an example for everyone else.

 

[Towered]

This mall was already a totally dated dump way back in the 80's when it still had an Eaton's. It had absolutely nothing on Sherway at the time.

 

[J-M-Z]

This mall was already a totally dated dump way back in the 80's when it still had an Eaton's. It had absolutely nothing on Sherway at the time.

Rexdale Mall became dated as soon as Albion Mall installed a movie theatre in the mid 60's. Then a food court in the late 90's.
While other malls in the area continued to grow, the aging Rexdale mall just couldn't keep up.

Random mall memory: when my brother and I were about six years old, we were hanging around the escalator near Eaton's.
I remember asking my mom if we could "play on the escalator". At the same time, a man in a suit was coming up from the
underground parking garage. The man looked at us and responded with a simple "no".

I like to think of that man in the brown suit as our Rexdale Mall guardian angel.

 

[J-M-Z]

Might as well bring up the latest news in regards to Rexdale Mall's future here as well:

Toronto's Rexdale Mall for sale in receivership process

Ernst & Young Inc. has been appointed receiver and manager to operate, market and sell the Rexdale Mall in Toronto's west-end Etobicoke neighbourhood. It is part of wider receivership proceedings which include Woodbine Mall and 1500 Birchmount Business Park.

renx.ca

Certain sites list Rexdale Mall as part of the 'SmartCentres Rexdale', which is actually incorrect. The SmartCentres only accounts for the area between the old Zellers
building and Walmart.

As we touched on in the past, the owner of the Rexdale Mall also owns the troubled Woodbine Centre. Both properties are in the process of being sold through a court
-ordered receivership in lieu of unpaid loan arrangements.

 

[J-M-Z]

Thanks to Eugenio Arcilesi of Vintage Rexdale for this 1965 coloured photo of Rexdale Mall looking south towards Chilcot Ave.

Eugenio was also kind enough to provide this accompanying photo from 1965 of the Candy Time shop in Rexdale Mall.
See if you can spot the old Sears water tower in the window's reflection.