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| Last updated: August 14, 2004 (C) 2003, 2004, Michael J. LaRochelle |
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| PHOTOS OF OAKRIDGE MALL AND ENVIRONS HOME Notice: This site is in no way affiliated with RioCan, Loblaw Companies Limited, Wal-Mart, or any other company or organization associated with Oakridge Mall. Any omissions or errors are purely accidental, and I appreciate any comments or suggestions in maximizing the accuracy and completeness of this article. |
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| The Oakridge Shopping Centre was added to this development in the early 1960s. According to The London Free Press, the mall officially opened on November 8, 1962. Built originally as an outdoor shopping plaza, it was located at 1201 Oxford Street West, on the northwest corner of the intersection with Hyde Park Side Road. The original plaza included a Loblaws grocery store, as well as a Woolco store. Woolco was a discount department store chain that was part of the Woolworth empire, entering the North American market in 1962. Woolco was to Woolworth as Zellers is to The Bay. (Click here view a former Woolco store in Quebec City, as it looked in 2002.) One of the original retail stores in the Oakridge Shopping Centre was Clinger Paris Furs, which was a discount fur coat retailer that guranteed "a fur coat of the highest quality but at a reasonable price," according to a January 1965 advertisement on CFPL Radio. At that time, they sold China Mink, Muskrat, and Persian Lamb jackets, for only $119, as compared to the regular retail price of $299. In the ad, they also promise that shoppers need not pay until March of that year. Not a bad deal! Another of the original retail stores at Oakridge was Richard Keiling Jewellery, which sold, in addition to the obvious, Sterling silver flatware and plates. The Loblaws store was located at the east end of the mall, and the facade was made up entirely of glass. The entrance to the original Loblaws store was located in the location of the south-facing windows of the present-day Beer Store outlet. Over the next twenty or so years, the mall didn't change much. There was a free-standing Brewer's Retail Store in the south end of the parking lot near Oxford Street, as well as a pet store, laundromat, and restaurant, among other stores in the plaza itself. There was also an Esso gas station immediately adjacent to the intersection of Oxford and Hyde Park, which included a self-serve car wash. Woolco and Loblaws remained as the main tenants of the mall by 1987. In the late 1980s, a major expansion and redesign of the mall took place. This massive project included a new, larger Loblaws store. In the fall of 1989, Loblaws moved into its new location on the west end of the mall, after twenty-five years on the east end. This project also included the enclosure of the mall. However, the new Oakridge Mall was not a mammoth mall, like the new Masonville Place in the north end of London. Oakridge remained as a small, one-story mall, similar to that of Westown Plaza (now Cherryhill Village Mall) further east on Oxford Street. In 1990, the old Brewer's Retail store was razed and made part of the parking lot of Oakridge Mall. The Beer Store opened a new, larger store in part of the former Loblaws. The other half of the former Loblaws store became a Consumers Distributing store. Woolco continued to operate in the same space it had been in for over twenty-five years, but the chain itself was facing financial problems by then. The Esso station was also razed, around 1993. Esso moved onto the 7-Eleven property on the southeast corner of the intersection. The site of the former Esso remained vacant for the next eleven years, as former gas station sites are not permitted to be redeveloped for a certain number of years. The new Oakridge Mall included many stores, including: Bank of Montreal, CIBC, Wendell Holmes (book and stationery store), Sooter's (photo shop), The Brandy Tree (gift shop), Pizza Pizza, Pharma Plus, Gordon's Gold, Nicholl's Animal Hospital, a winery, and others. In 1994, the American-based Wal-Mart bought the troubled Woolco chain, and took over 122 of their 160 stores. This was Wal-Mart's official entry into the Canadian market. All three Woolco stores in London became Wal-Mart stores promptly, including Oakridge. By March 1994, Wal-Mart was fully operational in Oakridge Mall, in the space formerly occupied by Woolco. The new Wal-Mart store included a McDonald's, replacing the old Strawberry Street cafeteria in Woolco. Most of the stores mentioned earler remained at Oakridge through the 1990s. Sooter's was replaced by Black's in the early 90s, and Consumers Distributing was replaced by Crazy Lee's upon its demise as a company around 1997. Other stores opened, including Zally's Bagel Bakery, Baldie's Video, Leslies of Bayfield, Paulmac's Pet Food, and A Buck or Two. Sometime around 1994, Bill Bentley's Restaurant opened. Very little changed at Oakridge Mall for the next few years. The Wal-Mart store added a one-hour photo developer in 1999. By 2001, almost the entire mall was occupied by tenants. Apparently the vacancy rate was the lowest it had been in the mall's recent history, according to a local resident. Radio Shack opened a store there around that time, in the space formerly occupied by Baldie's Video. Bill Bentley's expanded their space northward. By now, Crazy Lee's had become FashionMax. Payless Shoe Source also located in Oakridge Mall, in between FashionMax and The Beer Store, in the old Loblaws space. However, in 2001 it was announced that the Wal-Mart store would be relocating to a new, bigger store on Highway 22 (Fanshawe Park Road), five kilometres to the north, in 2003. Despite the threat of the mall's demise in the coming years, it was a bustling place full of shoppers. With a McDonald's, Pizza Pizza, and Jack Spratt Subs, it was a popular lunchtime destination for students at nearby St. Thomas Aquinas and Oakridge high schools. Oakridge, Byron, and until this past year, Hyde Park, are commercially underserviced areas of the west end of London. Oakridge Mall was one of the few shopping areas in this large part of the city, and thus it was the place to shop. In the final couple of weeks of Wal-Mart's existance at Oakridge Mall, they held a massive clearance sale. While patronage at the mall was very high during this sale, patronage dropped off dramatically as soon as Wal-Mart left. Loblaws lost some business as well, according to one of the store's employees; however Loblaws had fared relatively well in the slow death of the mall. Other stores were not so lucky, and closed down very quickly. Hallmark was one of the first stores to leave the mall in early 2003. Zally's Bagel Bakery, and T & L Imports soon followed. More recently, FashionMax, Jack Spratt Subs, and A Buck or Two have closed. Bentley, a luggage store inside the mall near the former Wal-Mart, had plans to close in January 2004, due to a loss in patronage; however, seven months later, they are still open, as they have been unable to sell off their massive inventory, even at 65% off the regular price. Other stores chose to move to new locations in west London. Payless Shoe Source recently moved to the big-box development at the corner of Hyde Park Road and Fanshawe Park Road, near the new Wal-Mart store. As for Jack Spratt Subs, a nearby location at 431 Boler Road remains open. At present, construction is under way. On the south side of Oxford Street, a new Bank of Montreal (BMO) branch opened on June 28, 2004. The new branch, at 4,000 square feet, includes a drive-thru ATM. This has meant that the old BMO branch inside Oakridge Mall has closed, putting the mall one step closer to its end. At this time, a Shoppers Drug Mart store, and a large farmer's market outlet store are under construction on the same site as the new BMO. On the north side of Oxford, the new Beer Store is under construction on the former Esso site at the corner. The former Wal-Mart parking lot facing Hyde Park Road has been demolished, and four new buildings are under construction on the old parking lot site and on the adjacent grassy area. The largest of the four buildings will include several of the mall's current tenants, such as Pizza Pizza, Gordon's Gold, and Black's. A new Subway outlet is planned for this building. Reportedly, demolition of the existing mall building will begin in mid-September. It is probable that the eastern extremity of the mall, which was the original Loblaws store, will be demolished first. The opening of the new Beer Store will render the old Loblaws building completely vacant. The old Wal-Mart store will probably follow, then the rest of the mall. Loblaws will remain on its current site for the time being, until the new Real Canadian Superstore is opened on the former mall site. CIBC, located directly adjacent to Loblaws, reports that it will remain in its current location until January 2005. |
| On the morning of September 24, 2003, I woke up and turned on the radio. On the news on CKSL-AM that morning, it was announced that Oakridge Mall was to be torn down soon, in favour of the development of a new big-box plaza. This came to me as no surprise, as the mall's main tenant, Wal-Mart, left in early 2003 in order to relocate to a new, bigger location about five kilometres to the north. Oakridge Mall has been a major shopping area for northwest London for over forty years. In the aftermath of World War II, suburbs began springing up on the outskirts of cities across North America. London, Ontario was no different. During the 1950s, well-known London property developer Sifton Properties Limited built a large suburban community in London Township. The developments were initially located on lots 22, 23 and part of lot 26 of Concession I, and parts of lots 24, 25 and 26 of Concession II. This was generally located along the 2nd Concession Road (now Oxford Street), and the North River Road (now Riverside Drive), around the Hyde Park Side Road. The development stretched almost as far as the Village of Byron, which was also in the process of becoming a major suburban development to the west of London at the time. Collectively, this development was called Oakridge. The development was split into the subdivisions of Oakridge Acres and Oakridge Park. Oakridge Park included all developments in Concession II, as well as Lot 26 of Concession I. Oakridge Acres included all developments on lots 22 and 23 in Concession I. Lot 25 and part of lot 26 in Concession I were initially saved from development because of the existence of the Byron Bog (now Sifton Bog). According to the Upper Thames River Conservation Authority, it is the farthest southerly acidic bog in Canada. Oakridge was annexed into the City of London in 1961. The connection from the Village of Byron to Oakridge was improved in 1965 with the building of a new two-lane bridge, which replaced the old one-lane structure which had been in place for decades. Oakridge has expanded in size over the years, and today encompasses an area bounded by the Thames River to the south and west, the CNR tracks to the north, and Wonderland Road to the east. Access to Oakridge from the west was further improved by the opening of the extension of Oxford Street west to Commissioners Road, which included a new bridge, which opened on November 5, 2003. The addition of the new Oakridge Crossing subdivision north of Oxford Street and west of Capulet Lane will expand Oakridge further to the northeast. The Oakridge Ford car dealership and Oakridge Daycare are located a short drive to the east of Oakridge along Oxford Street. |
| Oakridge Mall has been a part of my life and a part of my family's life since it opened. My mom lived in Oakridge Acres from 1962-1964, and she saw the mall built. One of her neighbours worked in the Woolco store when it first opened. Her family shopped at the original Oakridge Mall during the time they lived in Oakridge Acres. In the early 1980s, she moved back to London with my dad, and I was born in 1986. From the time I was born, they took me to Oakridge Mall often. I can remember shopping at the old Loblaws store when I was about two or three years old. I also remember visiting a pet store and a laundromat, which were located at the back of what became Bill Bentley's. When I was a little older, I remember going to the kiddie midway in the Oakridge Mall parking lot, which operated annually in the spring. Every Thursday night my dad and I went to shop for groceries at the new Loblaws store. I became familiar with the layout of the store back then, and to this day I know exactly where to find every product because the store hasn't really changed its layout at all. When Woolco was still at Oakridge, I went there often with my mom, and sometimes we would stop in at Strawberry Street to get a bite to eat. The trouble was, they seemed to always be closed. We would go inside and go to the counter where there would be employees standing at the cash register, only to tell us they were closed! What really made me mad was that there were always other people there eating. Like the rest of the Woolco stores in Canada, the Oakridge store looked very dated when Wal-Mart took over in 1994. Later in the 1990s, we sometimes went to Bill Bentley's restaurant for lunch. When I joined the 2nd London Scout Troop in 2000, they had some planned fundraisers for our upcoming trip to CJ'01 in PEI, which would take place at Oakridge Mall. On Saturday December 9, 2000, I helped sell Christmas trees in front of the Loblaws store. I operated the cash register, which was a first for me. While the trees were actually being sold by Loblaws, a portion of the sales went to help pay for our trip to PEI seven months later. The 2nd London Scouts sold Christmas trees in front of Loblaws throughout December. Our Troop also held a Christmas gift-wrapping fundraiser for CJ'01, in partnership with the nearby 70th London Scout Troop. I spent two hours wrapping gifts at a table inside the mall outside Wal-Mart on the evening of Friday December 22nd, and then again for four hours on the following afternoon. The 2nd London has a long history of fundraising projects at Oakridge Mall. In my early years of Scouting at the 16th London in the 1990s, I recall the 2nd holding barbecues outside Loblaws on a number of occasions. This was not the only fundraising I helped out with at Oakridge Mall. On the afternoon of Saturday February 3, 2001, I spent three hours outside Wal-Mart (same location as the gift wrapping) helping to sell raffle tickets for a car draw, sponsored by the Knights of Columbus. The fundraiser was for the Arthritis Society, and in the three hours we raised around $150. Since the photo developer opened at Wal-Mart at Oakridge in 1999, I got lots of my photos developed there. Most of my CJ'01 photos on this website were developed there the very day I returned to London. Wal-Mart was also a common destination for my friends and I in Grades 10 and 11, in 2002. We often went to McDonald's for lunch on Fridays, and sometimes shopped in Wal-Mart afterwards if we had time. It was sad to see McDonald's leave when Wal-Mart left. This loss meant that the closest McDonald's to Byron was now over five kilometres away, either at Oxford and Wonderland or in Westmount. These locations are far and not as easily accessable from Byron. Even Wal-Mart in Oakridge was over three kilometres away from Byron, but it was more accessable. It was also sad to see a mall once bustling with shoppers reduced to an eerie emptyness like a school hallway in the evening. One afternoon, not long after Wal-Mart left, I was in Loblaws and I took a look at the mall corridor near the former Wal-Mart. There was a grand total of about three people there, all buying lottery tickets at the info booth. Oakridge Mall, therefore, has some sentimental value to me. It was never my favourite mall in London by any means -- I'd go to Westmount or Masonville, or even Galleria if I had a choice any day -- but they're much further away from where I live than Oakridge. It was just the amount of time I spent there, with my family and friends; not to mention the preparation for CJ'01 I carried out there. To see Oakridge Mall leveled will be like a funeral for a good friend that you took for granted, but then realized his impact on you at the end of his life. I am in the process of putting together some photo galleries of Oakridge Mall. The first capsule of this gallery has been uploaded, and features photos I took of Oakridge Mall on September 24th, 2003. These photos will capture what the mall looked like in its final year, while it was still open but deserted. And, guess where they were developed? The new Wal-Mart Store on Fanshawe Park Road. Please click on the link below if you wish to view my photos. |
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