Primaris To Demolish Portion Of Windsor's Devonshire Mall

Primaris To Demolish Portion Of Windsor’s Devonshire Mall

A long-vacant former Sears store at Primaris REIT’s Devonshire Mall in Windsor will soon be demolished as part of a redevelopment that will open up land for future uses.

The space, which has a basement and two floors above ground, has remained largely vacant since Sears closed in early 2018. It was temporarily used by Spirit Halloween as a pop-up outlet and served as a COVID-19 vaccination clinic for 10 months beginning in June 2021.

The removal of the Sears building will free up 18.5 acres and create an opportunity to reconfigure the outside entrance at that end of the mall.

“The cost of restoring it to modern environmental and safety standards was very high,” Primaris REIT chief executive officer Alex Avery told RENX. “So we thought rather than spending a lot of money trying to repurpose that, we would do what’s right for the mall and create a new high-impact entrance like we have in other parts of the mall.”

Primaris took ownership of Devonshire Mall at the end of 2021 as part of its $800-million acquisition of six shopping centres and two related properties from Healthcare of Ontario Pension Plan.

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