Town and Country Officially Closes After 49 Years
Aug 18, 2010
(News Release) VICTORIA – Town and Country Shopping Centre, a fixture of the Saanich community since 1961, officially closed for business as its last remaining retailer, Moores Clothing For Men, locked its doors. Town and Country – a mall located on a piece of history-rich land at the hub of Southern Vancouver Island – is being replaced by Uptown, a high-density, sustainably designed, mixed-use development.
“This is a site that’s absolutely brimming with local heritage,” says Uptown General Manager Roberta Ferguson. “We’re honoured to be locating Uptown here.” Until 1919, passengers aboard the V&S Railway between Victoria and Sidney travelled directly through the property. Until 1960, the site was home to the original Saanich firehall and the public works yard. Later, when the Town and Country Shopping Centre opened, the property made the news once again, hailed as “tailormade for its customers” (Daily Colonist, June 25, 1961).
“For so many locals,” says Ferguson, “it’s a place filled with warm memories: from the staff of Megson Fitzpatrick Insurance, whose offices have been here since Town and Country opened, to some long-time employees of the original 1961 Woolworths (now Walmart), to our current construction crew – one of whom was an apprentice electrician on the original shopping centre.”
For Moores’ store manager Bruce Smith, the move from Town and Country to Uptown is an energizing one. “It’s a new day for us,” he says. “It’s like going from the basement to the penthouse. While Town and Country was a very productive mall, Uptown is like a breath of fresh air for the entire community.”
Almost all of Town and Country’s tenants – including Megson Fitzpatrick, Moores, Shoppers Drug Mart and Walmart – will be part of the first phase of Uptown. Phase 1 is already well underway, with all of the anchor stores open. Now, with the closure of Town and Country, work on Phase 2 can begin. Developer Morguard Investments expects to tackle deconstruction of the existing buildings in September.
“As eager as we are to bring Phase 2 to life, our approach will be decidedly deliberate,” says Geoff Nagle, Morguard’s Director of Development for Western Canada. “As in Phase 1, we’ll carry out an environmentally sensitive deconstruction rather than a simple demolition. This is a longer, more expensive process, but it’s a strategy that fits with our sustainability objectives.”
The conversion from Town and Country to Uptown is itself an ecologically sound move, says Nagle. “In transforming what was a 1960s strip mall into a modern, mixed-use development, we’re reinvigorating the existing 18.75 site with a compact, walkable neighbourhood that would otherwise have required more than 75 acres of land. And we’re establishing a catalyst for the creation of a dense urban community between downtown and uptown Victoria.”