Montreal Eaton Centre
 Atrium of Montreal Eaton Centre |
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| Location | Montreal, Quebec, Canada |
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| Address | 705 Saint-Catherine Street West; Montreal, QC; H3B 4G5 |
| Opening date | 1991 |
| Management | Cadillac Fairview |
| Owner | Cadillac Fairview |
| No. of stores and services | 175 |
| Total retail floor area | 26,941.9 m2 (290,000 sq ft) |
| Parking | Metropolitain Parking (492 spaces underground) |
| No. of floors | 5 |
| Website | www.centreeatondemontreal.com |
The Montreal Eaton Centre (French: Le Centre Eaton Montréal) is a shopping mall located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, and the largest in downtown Montreal. It is located in the heart of the Montreal underground city.
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[edit] Location
Montreal Eaton Centre is located on Sainte Catherine Street, one of Montreal's primary shopping streets, and is adjacent to the former Eaton's department store (now a shopping and office complex known as the Complexe Les Ailes). The centre is connected to McGill metro and the Montreal Underground City. Its main entrance is on the north side of Saint Catherine Street, just east of Place Montreal Trust.
[edit] History
The site that the Montreal Eaton Centre occupies was previously the Les Terrasses mall, which operated from 1976 to 1987. It was built a top the now defunct Victoria street, which road and buildings were expropriated for construction of the mall.
As with the existing mall, it was connected to the metro, underground city and the (now defunct) Eaton's department store, however differed in many respects with the current Eaton Centre. In particular the mall layout was a triangular spiral, with gradually rising interconnected floors, approximately 45 feet (14 m) high in total. Though it had three escalators, at each point of the triangle, patrons could gradually walk to the top of the mall.[1] Floors were colour coded and the mall was adorned with trees, plants and ivy. It housed 140 stores[2], each facing towards the center of the triangle. It was demolished after only one decade of use, and following extensive construction, reopened as the Montreal Eaton Centre in 1991. Eaton's department store, for which it was named after, closed in 1999.
Les Terrasses/Montreal Eaton Centre was managed by Rouses Quebec Corporation Development and York Hannover Development (from 1978 to 1993). In September 1997, after the demise of Services de Gestion CEM Inc., Cadillac Fairview Corporation Ltd. took over the shopping centre.
On July 1, 2000, Ivanhoe Cambridge (then known simply as Ivanhoe) acquired the mall through an exchange of assets. Cadillac Fairview ceded the Montreal Eaton Centre in exchange of Ivanhoe's stakes in Carrefour Laval and Promenades St-Bruno. Viacom sold the Famous Players chain to Cineplex Entertainment in 2005. Under the deal, the Famous Players location at the mall was not sold and was closed instead. Cineplex began acquiring the nearby Paramount theatre (now Scotiabank theatre) at the time, since it owned as Cineplex's 17-screen Quartier Latin theatre but also, it idled the Parisien theatre (formerly under Famous Players).
