Category Archives: Eaton Centre

Renovators tackle Eaton Centre’s Trinity Court

Toronto Eaton Centre interior

Scaffolding stands three storeys high in the Trinity Court escalator banks while the 250 Yonge St. office tower entrance (top right) sports a sleek new look

 

Renovators move north: Now that Centre Court looks crisp and clean with its new flooring, handrails and refurbished escalator banks, Toronto Eaton Centre renovators have turned their attention to the northern half of the shopping mall area — specifically, in and around Trinity Court outside the Sears store.

The Centre’s two-year, $120-million revitalization project has been chugging along for months, and regular visitors have become accustomed to taking detours and dodging scaffolding en route to their favourite retailers. For the past few weeks, shoppers have had to wind around hoarding to access the Trinity Court escalators while contractors replace handrails on the upper levels, refurbish the lifts, and replace the old tile floors.

New glass and stainless steel handrails have been installed on Level 2 in the retail area between the information desk and Trinity Court, but the old floor tiles there haven’t yet been changed. But with the railing replacement work out of the way, the scaffolding and temporary artificial ceiling have been removed from Level 1 (the mall’s lower level), and traffic is back to normal down there.

For its part, Level 2 looks open and bright — it has lost the dark, almost claustrophic feel it had before.

Below are some recent photos;  to see even more, check out the Toronto Eaton Centre revitalization album on the Photo Sets page of the blog.

 

Toronto Eaton Centre Trinity Court

February 3 201: The old handrails will be ripped out soon

 

Toronto Eaton Centre

North view of scaffolding being set up around the Trinity Court escalators

 

Toronto Eaton Centre

Level 2 view of scaffolding and hoarding around the Trinity Court escalators

 

Toronto Eaton Centre

Level 2 view of scaffolding in Trinity Court

 

Toronto Eaton Centre revitalization

The scaffolding in Trinity Court is stacked three storeys high

 

Toronto Eaton Centre

Hoarding on Level 1 (the Eaton Centre’s lower retail floor)

 

Toronto Eaton Centre

February 15 2011: Scaffolding is gone, but Level 1 floor still hasn’t been replaced

 

Toronto Eaton Centre

With the temporary ceiling removed, shoppers can look up to Level 2 once again

 

Toronto Eaton Centre

Escalator refurbishment at the Queen Street end of the mall

 

Toronto Eaton Centre

Someone shut the barn door: The Pottery Barn has moved out of the Eaton Centre

Toronto Eaton Centre

The Shooting Fountain in Centre Court is still popular with visitors

Toronto Eaton Centre

Level 2 (behind the information kiosk) feels far less confined and dark

Toronto Eaton Centre

The new railings on Level 2 provide a better view of Level 1

Toronto Eaton Centre

The new flooring looks good on Level 3, but it looks bare without the row of giant ficus benjamina trees that used to grace this stretch of shops

Toronto Eaton Centre

February 25 2011: The old metal handrails have been removed from Trinity Court

Toronto Eaton Centre

Level 4 view of the scaffolding in Trinity Court

Toronto Eaton Centre

Old railings and floor tiles on Level 4 eventually will be replaced

Toronto Eaton Centre

These stairs and escalator at Centre Court were refurbished recently


Toronto Eaton Centre

A closer look at the new stairs and refurbished escalator

Toronto Eaton Centre

Visitors check out the Level 4 south view over Centre Court

Toronto Eaton Centre

Toronto Eaton Centre south view from Level 4

Eaton Centre’s interior renovations make a splash

 

The big squirt is back! The Eaton Centre’s famous “shooting fountain” is once again entertaining children and adult shoppers alike now that most of the flooring and handrail renovations in the mall’s Centre Court have been completed and scaffolding cleared away.

The interior of the 33-year-old Eaton Centre, one of Toronto’s top tourist attractions, has been getting spruced up and modernized in a two-year, $120 million revitalization project. So far, new flooring plus glass and stainless steel railings have been installed from Centre Court all the way south to the Queen Street end of the complex, while the Eaton Centre’s dingy public washrooms also have been overhauled and upgraded. During much of the past six months, tall scaffolding has limited traffic flow and sightlines in the shopping concourses as well as access to the fountain, which was turned off so it could get spiffed up, too. But when I walked through the south half of Eaton Centre this afternoon, there wasn’t any scaffolding in sight, and water was flowing in the fountain once more.

Meanwhile, renovators are gradually working their way toward the north end of the mall, where they are taking up the old floor and installing new railings between Centre Court and the galleria outside Sears. Construction of a new entrance from the mall to the adjoining 250 Yonge Street office tower also is underway. Below are some photos I took of Centre Court today as well as a pic from last August of the court and fountain; today’s pics show how markedly the floor and railing changes have improved the Eaton Centre interior. Still to come are redevelopment of the mall’s food court areas plus lighting enhancements and the installation of what promises to be a spectacular galleria ceiling light sculpture created by the U.K.’s United Visual Artists. You can read more about the Eaton Centre revitalization project here.