Hgeocities.com/cplarosa/toronto/malls.htmgeocities.com/cplarosa/toronto/malls.htm.delayedx"bJSjCOKtext/html0Cb.HFri, 08 Nov 2002 17:53:31 GMT66Mozilla/4.5 (compatible; HTTrack 3.0x; Windows 98)en, *"bJC Chinese Shopping Malls in Toronto
Chinese Shopping Malls In Toronto
Scarborough, Markham, and Richmond Hill

This page is a compilation of resources for finding Chinese shopping centers in the Toronto suburbs of Scarborough, Markham, and Richmond Hill. These areas of the Toronto suburbs have a large Chinese population from Hong Kong, and many of the malls are as modern as any western mall in Canada or the United States. Most of the people who visit these malls are Chinese, so you may feel a little out-of-place if you are a western visitor.

 Market Villiage, (c) 2000 Stanley Wong
Market Villiage and Pacific Mall make up the largest indoor Chinese mall complex in North America¹. Together they have easily over 300 stores. These malls are located right next to each other in the same parking lot, at the corner of Kennedy Road and Steeles Avenue (see blue 2 on the Chinese Shopping Mall map). You can spend an entire day shopping in these two malls, which include food courts, restaurants, grocery stores, boutiques, and many other stores. Market Village was developed into a Chinese mall in the early 1990's. From the outside, this mall looks like a block of old-fashioned row houses (see photo), but this is mainly cosmetic, and the inside layout is similar to a typical unified western mall. Pacific Mall was built in the late 1990's, and has two floors. The first floor is laid out as a uniform grid of glass cubicles, and the second floor has a food court and a new section called "Pacific Heritage Town" which opened in 2000. Pacific Heritage Town is like a small mall within a mall, and has it's own stores and food court. These malls are open 7 days a week, and are usually very busy on Saturday and Sunday. Parking is free, and there's underground parking under Pacific Mall. If you want to check out these malls before visiting, a few of the stores have web sites:

 Pacific Mall, (c) 2000 Stanley Wong
HSBC Bank Canada       Market Village
Shark's Fin City Fast Food       Pacific Mall (Heritage Town, second floor)
TenRen's Tea Time       Market Village & Pacific Mall
W. Y. Trading Company       Market Village

 Pacific Mall, (c) 2000 Stanley Wong
First Markham Place (blue 11 on the map) is the newest modern mall in the area. It opened in 1998, and is still expanding. It's not as big as the Market Villiage/Pacific Mall complex, but it has over 100 stores in the indoor shopping mall, and more stores and restaurants in the outdoor plaza. It has a large center food court and stage with special events scheduled throughout the year. The mall is open 7 days a week, and has free parking.

Times Square mall (blue 15 on the map) is another, smaller indoor/outdoor mall that's worth visiting, but many stores are closed or have shorter hours on Sunday, so watch out. There are also many other smaller malls and shopping centers, which can be found on the maps below.

The sections below list some useful links to Chinese shopping resources on the web. These sites are in both Chinese and English. Below the links is a road map of "Chinese Shopping Malls" (figure 1) in the Scarborough/Markham/Richmond Hill area where most of the malls and shopping centers are located. To find a mall, find the name of the mall in the table below the map (table 1), and then find the corresponding number (of the same color) on the map. In general, red represents western malls, blue represents Chinese malls, and green represents smaller plazas.

 


Market Village Mall
    
Pacific Mall
    
First Markham Place

 

Figure 1
 
Chinese Indoor Malls
  1. Evergold Centre
  2. Market Village Mall,
    Pacific Mall
  3. Scarborough Landmark
  4. Dynasty Centre
  5. Skyone
  6. New Century Plaza,
    Metro Square
  7. Eastville Square
  8. Peachtree Centre,
    New Kennedy Square
  9. Swing'n Bowl
  10. Bank of China Centre
  11. First Markham Place
  12. Inernational City Square
  13. Sun Square
  14. Causeway Bay Square
  15. Times Square
  16. Commerce Gate
  
Chinese Outdoor Plazas
  1. Milliken Square
  2. Finch-Midland Centre
  3. Scarborough Village Mall
  4. Scarborough Industrial Centre
  5. Midland Court/Centre
  6. Silverland Centre
  7. Midland Village
  8. Scherwood Centre
  9. Agincourt Commercial Centre
  10. Agincourt Mall
  11. 25 Glen Watford Drive
  12. Dragon Center
  13. Cathay Plaza
  14. First Commercial Place
  15. Prince Mall
  16. Mandarin Shopping Centre
  17. Pearl Plaza
  18. Regency Court
  19. Milliken Wells Shopping Centre
  20. Victoria Business centre
  
Chinese Outdoor Plazas
  1. Prisperity Centre
  2. 3600-3640 Victoria Park Ave.
  3. Bamburgh Gardens
  4. Centerview Square
  5. Victory Shopping Centre
  6. Woodside Square
  7. Midtown Plaza
  8. (there is no 28)
  9. Birchwood Plaza
  10. Finch Leslie Square
 
Western Indoor Malls
  1. Markville Mall
  2. Scarborough Town Centre
  3. Bridewood Mall
  4. Fairview Mall
Table 1

Notes:
  1. Pacific Mall is the largest Chinese mall in North America, according to the Markham web page from Info Ontario.

References:

  1. The original "Chinese Shopping Malls" map (figure 1) along with the list of mall names was obtained from the "Chinatown" web page at the Newton Middle School in Littleton, Colorado. The web page has since been removed from their server. I have modified the map extensively from its original version.

  2. The photographs on this page were obtained from Stanley Wong's Popular Chinese shopping malls in Scarborough & Markham photo page which is part of Stanley Wong's Digital Photo Library. Many more high resolution images of Toronto are available at this site. I highly reommend it.

Additional Information:

  1. Chinatown Sextet - Chinatowns in the Greater Toronto Area - by Robert Tompkins at ThingsAsian  (January 18, 2002)

  2. Uptown - University of Toronto Student Connections

  3. Amime fans should check out the Pacific Mall Anime Shopping Guide at Rushita.com

This page was compiled by Christopher LaRosa.
Please report broken links or comments to cplarosa@yahoo.com.
Last Updated:  November 8, 2002
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Since 12/13/00