Site use as a car plant In 1921, the site was still a largely rural area on the fringe of the city of Toronto when the Danforth streetcar was extended to a new loop at Luttrell Avenue, just west of Victoria Park Avenue. This led to rapid development of the area. Most notably a
Ford Motor Company assembly plant was built covering the large site at the southwest corner of Danforth and Victoria Park. The old factory building is now the main building of the mall. The plant was the Canadian site of Ford production of the
Model T and
Model A. It remained Ford's primary Canadian facility until 1953 when Ford decided to construct the new
Oakville Assembly Plant. It then became the first Canadian plant of
Nash Motors making cars such as the
Nash Rambler and the Nash Canadian Statesman. In 1954, Nash merged with
Hudson Motor Car Company to create
American Motors and soon after the Danforth assembly plant was closed. AMC moved its assembly operations to
a new plant in
Peel Village Development's Peel Village in Brampton, and the Danforth factory was sold to Peel Village parent company
Elder Mines & Developments Ltd, who planned to redevelop it into a shopping centre.
Redevelopment as mall In 1962, it was redeveloped into a mall. The mall was built to serve the rapidly growing population of East York and Scarborough. Developer Elder Mines (later Peel-Elder) would go on to build a similarly named
Shoppers World Brampton mall a few years later. It was an early Canadian example of what would soon become ubiquitous: the fully enclosed and air conditioned, suburban shopping mall. When it opened it advertised itself as "the world's largest all electrically heated and air conditioned mall." The mall was 98% leased shortly after opening. The anchor tenant was
Eaton's, marking only the second time Eaton's had opened a store outside of a downtown area. Another original tenant was a branch of
Murray Koffler's drug store. Previously the stores had all been called Koffler's Drugs, but the new store adopted the name of the mall as
Shoppers Drug Mart. Finding the name a great success, Koffler soon applied it to the entire chain. The facility covered and was the primary shopping mall for the entire eastern
Greater Toronto Area until supplanted a decade later by
Scarborough Town Centre, which opened in May 1973. The Eaton's store was converted to a
Zellers in the early 1990s.
Target purchased most Zellers leaseholds in 2012, and reopened it as a Target store in 2013. Target left in early 2015, and the store was purchased by
Lowe's Canada during Target's bankruptcy liquidation. The new Lowe's location opened to the public in June 2016 and closed in 2023. ==Anchors==