The Orillia Square mall has rebounded from what looked like an imminent death and is enjoying a renaissance of sorts.
Since the property was purchased by Canadian Tire in late 2017, the mall has been dramatically transformed.
The long-empty former Target store was razed and in its place a new Canadian Tire superstore — one of the largest in the country — was built from the ground up.
Once that store found its footing, the building that formerly housed Canadian Tire has been transformed into the new homes of two other Canadian Tire brands: Sport Chek and Mark’s.
Those two stores, which moved from their original locations in west Orillia, have drawn lots of traffic to the Severn Township mall, says Ed Lukezic, who owns the Orillia Canadian Tire store.
“I think it’s getting more traffic into the Orillia mall area,” he said. “I think this is going to help develop the whole mall.”
While Lukezic doesn’t want to characterize the Orillia Square mall as a “dead mall,” he says it was probably creeping close to it.
“I think it’s slowly being revitalized now,” he said. “We put in a huge Canadian Tire here, and now we have Mark’s and Sport Chek, which is certainly going to bring a few more footsteps into our area.”
Jason’s No Frills owner Jason King says traffic has picked up since Sport Chek and Mark’s opened.
“We are seeing more customers as a result,” he said. “It’s going really well.”
King says he welcomes anything that will help draw more traffic to the area.
“Most of the development in Orillia has been built south of here,” he said. “Seeing more development happen outside as the mall gets revitalized will be good for this whole area.”
Karen Morrison, who was shopping at Mark’s on Thursday morning, said she was thrilled with the move.
“It’s handy now that this is here at the mall,” she said. “It’s way more convenient coming here instead of driving way over to where they used to be, which is a much busier area.”
She says the new Mark’s and Sport Chek are much nicer than they were at their previous locations.
“I think the way they have it set up is really nice,” she said. “They are bigger stores, which makes it easier to find stuff.”
Joyce Welch, who was shopping at Sport Chek on Thursday morning, said she loves the new store.
“We like that the store is on this side of town. It’s better to access for us and less busy," she said.
