They're definitely not demolishing the shell of the UpperMall level,.... This photo is like the photo 2 above, also taken from North Tower along Yonge Street looking southward into upper mall floor of former SpringRolls and Mirage, Cineplex ticket-office and BostonPizza space,... but as you can see, now they're building a concrete brick wall - this will be for the service corridor between the retail units (accessible from inside the mall) and the restaurants with Yonge frontage (to the right)
http://urbantoronto.ca/forum/thread...-riocan-quadrangle.17901/page-12#post-1131858
They definitely are demolishing the moat,... taking out most of the moat ceiling (pedestrian sidewalk) and walls,.... most of the moat space will be converted to storage area in the lower concourse level. To give you an idea of what the moat looks like,... this photo is the moat along Yonge just north of Sheppard looking northward,.... here you see the shell of former storefronts under the pedestrian sidewalk,... in the moat,.... most of those stores have been empty for decades,... since 2001. This used to be very heavily travelled by commuters taking a shortcut going from Sheppard bus to Sheppard-Yonge Subway station (avoiding longer walking distance via bus terminal) before they put in the Sheppard STUBway line in 2001!
Photos of moat along Yonge frontage just south of north end of SheppardCentre looking southward,.... here, they've already taken demolished the ceiling-roof of the moat, which is the pedestrian sidewalk! The foreground part of the first photo, shows a sloping concrete brick wall that used to support a clear sloping roof for the GoldenGriddle, later The Keg restaurant, then a pub but been empty for decades,.... also notice what looks like a service corridor, it was actually the pedestrian access to the underground pedestrian tunnel.
Photos of moat along Yonge frontage just south of north end of SheppardCentre, same as previous photo position, but looking northwest towards the brick covered Joseph Shepard - Canada Building (aka Passport building),.... last photo shows the northwest corner of the moat where there's a doorway leading to the underground pedestrian tunnel that connects SheppardCentre to the Joseph Shepard Canada Building; this underground pedestrian tunnel is odd in that it runs diagonally under the intersection of Yonge and Elmhurst/Greenfield Ave. Interestingly, the sign on the doorway to the underground pedestrian tunnels says it should reopen in Fall 2017,... SheppardCentre Mall renovation should be completed in Spring 2018,... thus, it seems like they'll be staging completion of different parts of the mall at different time.
Note: Moat along Sheppard is still mostly untouched since it's accessibility ramp is still in use.
