When Victorians didn't want 'eastern people' building a mall downtown
City faced fierce opposition from residents who did not want to see their downtown change
A lot of blame was being put on the out-of-towners who wanted to build a new shopping mall in downtown Victoria.
Because the local people who opposed the development didn't want anything to change in the picturesque B.C. capital.
"It's eastern people coming in and attacking Victoria," said Joan Hutchinson, a senior who had spent her life in Victoria and opposed seeing the mall project go ahead.
Yet in December 1986, the City of Victoria had approved the Cadillac Fairview- and Eaton's-led project, but the wrath of local residents had necessitated a review of that approval.
The National picked up the story three months later, shortly before the city would make a final decision on the development plan that would see a two-block stretch of old buildings torn down to make way for something new.
Blaming 'the brass from the East'
"Everyone in Victoria seems to have an opinion about the proposed Eaton Centre on Main Street — whether it's good for downtown business or disastrous for heritage buildings, it's a passionate question mark," the CBC's Jane Chalmers reported on March 6, 1987.
During public deputations on the mall proposal, Victoria residents let their elected representatives know how they felt about it.
"Let's take it slow," a man dressed in a sport coat and tie told local alderman, during one of those prior sessions. "This is Victoria — it's not New York, it's not Vancouver, it's not anywhere else."
Another man had singled out "the brass from the East of which we have little love for," who he claimed had intimidated the town council and local residents.
Developer Peter Picherak seemed to anticipate some pushback and had a grasp of what upset opponents of the proposed mall.
"Many people in Victoria, see Victoria, perhaps, as the last bastion of a non-homogenized culture, which is the characteristic they attribute to any kind of shopping complex," he told CBC News.
'Downtown needs some help'
Days after The National's report, Victoria's city council would approve the mall project, albeit with a few amendments that would retain some of the facades of some of the old buildings that would be demolished.
Victoria Mayor Gretchen Brewin was among the majority of aldermen who voted 7-2 in favour of approving it.
"Downtown needs an injection, downtown needs some help," Brewin said, shortly before the vote was taken.
"Whether we say it's dying, or whether we say it is enormously vibrant, nonetheless, some help is needed for downtown and I don't think anybody seriously disagrees with that."
The new mall
Weeks later, Brewin appeared on CBC-TV's Front Page Challenge, reiterating her view that the redevelopment was necessary.
"The city needs it, the city needs it," Brewin said, in the episode that was first aired in May of 1987.
By the end of the decade, the new Victoria Eaton Centre had opened, though just because it had been built didn't mean that its critics were satisfied.
"The jury is still out on whether this will act as a big retail vacuum — the black hole theory," heritage activist Mark Madoff told the Vancouver Sun in February 1989, as the new Eaton's store began welcoming customers.
"It is intended to be a blockbuster dominating presence in downtown. I'm certainly no more reconciled to it now than I was then."
The newly built mall would outlive Eaton's, as the long-lasting department store chain filed for bankruptcy in the 1990s. As of 2023, that complex is called the Bay Centre.
