Quote:
Originally Posted by J.OT13
I'm assuming the sketchy garage we are talking about is the one that used to be on the corner of Richmond and Bayshore Drive. That thing scared the hell out of me! Not sure why I always parked there. The garage, and in fact the whole mall was built in an awkward location and I assume that is why the parking structures are not well laid out. Anyone know what came first; the mall or the neighbourhood to the north?
Anyway, looking good. The new garage will look much better than Rideau's. And good for them for attracting all these new retailers before Rideau. Serves them well for dragging expansion plans for the last 13 years and not utilizing the Ogilvy building (may it rest in pieces).
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When the neighbourhood was being built in the mid to late 60's the mall was just a strip mall anchored by a Steinberg's grocery store. When the community was mostly built (early-mid 70's) they knocked down the strip mall and built a two-story shopping centre (with attached two-story parking garage). The mall still had a Steinberg's though, in the place at the back (sticking out the south side) where the Les Ailes was for a few years. The anchor tenants were The Bay at the west end, and Eaton's at the east end.
That's Steinberg's was great. You used to be able to shop, pay, and leave your groceries in the paper bags, a bag boy would staple numbers to your bags and give you slips with the same number. Your bags would be put in plastic bins, placed on roller belts and slid out of sight. Then you'd walk out to your car and drive up the outside side door (main door was a very wide (80'+) interior opening facing north into the mall). Hand your slips to a bag boy and they'd find your bin(s) and slide them on rollers to the sidewalk where the bag boy would pop your truck and load you up with groceries. Easy peasy.
The grocery store left sometime in the 80's.
Sometime in the 80's they added a third floor to the mall, and a third floor to the parking structure, but it wasn't designed as a three floor garage so the third floor was a separate structure, with supports that went through holes cut in the second floor. That's why there were pillars in odd places. And why the entrances on the third floor don't line up with the entrances from the second floor. And why the Bay has no third floor entrance from the West (no third floor garage there). But a new 5 floor garage at the east end meant Eaton's had a third floor entrance from the east and north.
As to the garage slopping, I think that was intentional as a place to dump second floor snow (back when the second floor was the top floor). It could accumulate there and melt there without flooding a large area of the floor.
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