Lawrence Plaza

Lawrence Plaza is one of the first shopping centres in Canada. It was built on the northwest 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 downtrodden atmosphere 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), which for decades, did not have a branch at the nearby Yorkdale Shopping Centre. When The Bay did open a store at Yorkdale, the Lawrence Plaza store became redundant. After a short while as an outlet store, the corner became a Dominion Save-a-Centre (now simply Dominion) and a Winners, which moved from across the plaza to the second floor.

For many years a large area on the south side of Lawrence Avenue was a dilapidated 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.

The kosher-style (but not kosher) dairy restaurant United Bakers moved to the plaza in 1986, and became a popular restaurant for the area's large Jewish community.

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. However, no additional parking has been added to the mall since it opened.

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, and the Lawrence West subway station is a ten minute walk.

Current tenants

* Scotiabank
* Perly Travel
* [http://www.tcml.net/|The Centre for Mediated Learning]
* Shopper's Drug Mart
* Shopper's Home Health Care
* The Shoe Company
* TD Canada Trust
* Fulcrum Publications
* 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

* [http://www.torontoneighbourhoods.net/regions/northyork/115.html Lawrence Manor]
* [http://www.toronto.ca/ttc/400route.htm TTC 400 Lawrence Manor Community Bus]
* [http://www.hbc.com/hbcheritage/history/week/twih.asp?article=25 Hudson's Bay Company History]