Eaton Centre

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.

However, author Rod McQueen wrote in The Eatons that there was no business case or market analysis to justify the construction of these downtown malls.

Often the new downtown mall had a "vacuum cleaner" effect of attracting the stronger street boutiques away from their neighbourhoods to become tenants in unstable shopping centres.

Suburban malls furthermore had the inherent advantage of conveniently located at where the city's population was relocating towards, including better access to arterial roads and freeways.

As stated in The Globe and Mail newspaper,[5]The history of retailing is filled with tales of merchants who were brilliantly prescient in their location choices, and others who totally misread their markets and fell flat.