Abandoned Hudson's Bay location in Toronto is being reduced to rubble

An abandoned Hudson's Bay location in Toronto is being razed to the ground after over 50 years near the corner of Yonge and Steeles.

The former Centerpoint Mall location of the defunct department store brand is finally being torn down after sitting abandoned for more than a year following the brand's demise.

The shuttered department store is being cleared to make way for a significant TTC subway extension project, set to carry the Line 1 route's Yonge portion north beyond its current terminus at Finch and deep into the suburbs.

Hudson's Bay opened its Centerpoint Mall location in 1974, though the location's over half-century-long history came to a sudden end when the retailer permanently closed all stores and ceased operations in June 2025.

Closure of the department store marked another step in the slow decline of brick-and-mortar retail in Canada, but it has proven convenient for transit planners, as its site can now better accommodate construction of the Yonge North Subway Extension (YNSE) project.

Demolition permits for The Bay — which once occupied the mall's east wing — sealed the building's fate back in February, and Metrolinx announced a few months later that the abandoned two-storey building's demolition was imminent.

Early works to remove the building kicked off back in June, advancing to exterior teardown work earlier this month.

Crews have since advanced to structural demolition of the former department store, exposing structural elements to daylight for the first time in over 50 years.

Large sections of the building have been torn away over the past few weeks, leaving growing piles of concrete rubble and steel to be sorted for recycling. 

The $5.6-billion YNSE project has been moving quickly through early construction milestones and will eventually extend Line 1 north into Vaughan, Markham, and Richmond Hill, adding five stations along approximately eight kilometres of new track.