Square One Shopping Centre

Square One Shopping Centre

Location	Mississauga, Ontario, Canada
Opening date	1973
Developer	OMERS/Oxford Properties Group
Management	OMERS/Oxford Properties Group
Owner	OMERS/Oxford Properties Group
No. of stores and services	360+
No. of anchor tenants	4 (Walmart, The Bay, Sears, Zellers)
Total retail floor area	1,614,125 square feet (149,957.1 m2)
Parking	8,450 spaces +
No. of floors	2
Website	www.shopsquareone.com

Square One Shopping Centre is a shopping mall located in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada. It is one of the largest shopping malls in Canada, with over 1.6 million square feet (150,000 m²) of retail space and more than 360 stores and services. On average, the mall serves over 21 million customers each year. Square One is located at 100 City Centre Drive in central Mississauga, about 28 km from Downtown Toronto and 16 km from Toronto Pearson International Airport. Square One's location is adjacent to the interchange of Highway 403 and Hurontario Street.

The mall is in very close proximity to the Mississauga Civic Centre and the Mississauga Living Arts Centre, both of which are located right across from the mall. Also located near the mall are residential condominiums, Mississauga's Central Library, a large Chapters bookstore and a 13-screen Cineplex Entertainment theatre featuring IMAX. The area near the mall is thus a unique combination of residential, government, and entertainment and retail-related commercial areas.

Located within the mall grounds is the main terminal of MiWay (formerly Mississauga Transit) bus network, which was opened in 1997, and a Peel Regional Police station, which was opened in 2002.

Each year, between June and October, one of the mall parking lots hosts a large farmers' market. The market is open on Fridays and Sundays. For the 2006 season, the market was moved from its previous location at the far end of the Wal-Mart parking lot to a new location, the parking lot located between The Bay and the Mississauga Civic Centre. For the 2007 season, the market was moved once again, this time to a larger location at the northwest parking lot of the mall, near Zellers.

Square One is currently owned and managed by the OMERS Realty Management Corporation through the Oxford Properties Group.

History

Excavation of the Square One site began in 1969. Current mayor of Mississauga Hazel McCallion, who at that time was mayor of the nearby Village of Streetsville (now part of Mississauga), attended the ground-breaking ceremony, which was held in the middle of a hayfield. The mall, in fact, predates the City of Mississauga itself by one year. Mississauga's city centre has since grown around Square One, as planned prior to construction.

A bird's-eye view of Square One Shopping Centre.

Major construction finished in mid-1973, having cost only $44-million. In October 1973, Square One opened, having 169 shops and services, including four major retailers: Dominion, Sears, The Bay and Woolco (a subsidiary of Woolworth's). At the time of its opening, it was the third largest shopping mall in the world.

During the 1980s, the mall underwent numerous expansions, adding 80 more stores and over a million square feet to the property, including a new Eaton's department store. In the mid 1990s, Woolco closed. The Woolco location was transformed into one of the world's largest Walmart stores (2 floors, 220,000 sq ft (20,000 m²)). Following the bankruptcy of the Eaton's chain in 1999, the Square One store was converted into Canada's largest Zellers location.

Between 2000 and 2003, a new expansion termed Cityside was completed. This latest expansion added 320,000 square feet (30,000 m²) of retail space to the mall, as well as an additional 370,000 square feet (34,000 m²) for parking. New stores opened included Old Navy, Home Outfitters and Tommy Hilfiger. A new Cineplex Odeon movie theatre was also opened. In 2005, the theatre was bought by the Empire Theatres chain, as there already was a large Famous Players Coliseum across the street.

In 2004/2005, a major $33-million style renovation of much of the mall began. Besides giving much of the original parts of the mall a new look and feel, the renovation project divided Square One into three distinct "neighbourhood" areas, with carpeted "transition areas" located in between. The major phase of the renovation was completed in November 2006.

To coincide with the renovation, several new stores have been opened including H&M, Swarovski, Sephora, FCUK and Marciano.

In 2008, a portion of land in the northeast corner of the city centre region has been developed into a series of small box stores: Boston Pizza, Panera Bread, Running Room, Spence Diamonds, and the LCBO.

As of August 15, 2009, there is an Apple Store on the 2nd floor of the mall in between Aritzia and Tommy Denim. In September 2010, Victoria's Secret opened a store across the hall from Aritzia, marking its arrival into the Ontario market.

During the summer of 2009, work began on the next phase of development. The northeast parking lot, behind Walmart is being converted into a series of box stores with a reduced amount of parking. When finished, it will consist of a Whole Foods Market, Crate and Barrel, an unnamed restaurant and two still unassigned stores. In 2012, Square One will have the first Target store in Mississauga after converting the current Zellers store.

Anchors & Majors

Part of the second floor, around closing time on a Sunday (this area has since been re-styled)

• Walmart (220,000 sq ft (20,439 m²)).
• The Bay (191,011 sq ft (17,746 m²))
• Zellers (163,733 sq ft (15,211 m²)) - to become Target
• Sears (145,202 sq ft (13,490 m²))
• Empire Theatres (50,000 sq ft (5,000 m²))
• Famous Players (50,000 sq ft (5,000 m²))
• Whole Foods Market (43,088 sq ft (4,003 m²))
• Home Outfitters (39,763 sq ft (3,694 m²))
• Sport Check (36,000 sq ft (3,345 m²))
• Old Navy (25,941 sq ft (2,410 m²))
• Chapters (25,000 sq ft (2,323 m²))
• Crate & Barrel (24,151 sq ft (2,244 m²))
• Urban Behaviour (20,282 sq ft (1,884 m²))
• H&M (16,719 sq ft (1,553 m²))
• Gap (15,250 sq ft (1,417 m²))
• Zara (14,055 sq ft (1,306 m²))

Fast Food Restaurants

These are some fast food restaurants located in square one shopping centre.

Name	Location
Asian Gourmet	Main Food Court
Bourbon St.Grill	Main Food Court
Jimmy the Greek	Main Food Court
KFC	Main Food Court
Manchu Wok	Main Food Court
New York Fries	Main Food Court
Starbucks	Main Food Court
Taco Bell	Main Food Court
Thai Express	Main Food Court
Burger King	Across from Main Food Court
McDonald's	Wal-Mart

External links

• Official website