Eaton Centre

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Eaton Centre (French: Centre Eaton) is a name associated with shopping centres in Canada, originating with Eaton's, one of Canada's largest department store chains at the time that these malls were developed. Eaton's partnered with development companies throughout the 1970s and 1980s to develop downtown shopping malls in cities across Canada. Each mall contained an Eaton's store, or was in close proximity to an Eaton's store, and typically the mall itself carried the "Eaton Centre" name. These joint ventures were a significant retail development trend in Canada during that period.^[1]

With the demise of the Eaton's chain in 1999, and the retiring of the Eaton's name as a retail banner in 2002, most of these malls have been renamed, and most of these Eaton's store locations were converted to Sears Canada stores. Some malls in smaller urban areas, which were typically the least successful of all the Eaton Centre developments, have been demolished or converted to other, non-retail uses. In 2014, Sears announced that it would close its Toronto Eaton Centre store, which was eventually converted into a Nordstrom, followed by vacating their head office in the upper levels after a bankruptcy liquidation. Sears Canada went out of business in 2018.

Only the Toronto and Montreal Eaton Centres have retained the "Eaton Centre" branding for their entire existence.