The clock tower designed by Douglas Coupland for the brand new Shops at Don Mills outdoor lifestyle centre might have been inspired by the block-shaped lower-middle-class Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation constructions that filled out the country’s first planned suburb but, seen up close, its bouquet might as well be one of those galvanized steel midway rides temporarily stationed in lower-middle-class mall parking lots. Coupland must have been gratified by the circumstances under which his work was unveiled: a stage shared with nutritionist- turned-restaurateur Rose Reisman demonstrating how to make dessert in a shooter glass, a performance from Canadian Idol winner Eva Avilia, and housewifey shopper distractions shot for CityLine.

Don Mills getting its own very incarnation of a pedestrian-oriented open-air retailing environment — the best-known example, at least to viewers of The Hills, being The Grove in Los Angeles — is not without broader significance. This shopping spot means everything to the area and its demographics.

What began as a functional strip plaza in 1955 — eventually anchored by a bargain-based Eaton’s department store — was transformed into a sedate indoor mall in 1978. That change reflected the theoretical young marrieds, planted near the intersection of Don Mills and Lawrence in the age of Leave It To Beaver, who craved interior comfort by the time they reached their own 50s. Three decades later, when developer Cadillac Fairview announced plans to transform this space in light of their collective twilight, a backlash was all but inevitable.

And, no matter how pretty the Shops at Don Mills would be on the inside, how its whole meets the main streets couldn’t be less friendly. The feeling is not unlike EYE WEEKLY Psychogeography columnist Shawn Micallef’s account of walking around the overwhelming exterior of cavernous Yorkdale — in this case, the Shops at Don Mills complex might be the ultimate simulation of a small town within a big city, but accessing that utopia by anything but a car requires dealing with a history its spawn were too eager to leave.

Facing the gargantuan Shoppers Drug Mart — the first-ever location, a 50-year fixture of the Don Mills Centre, transplanted to its 1,000th store across the street — is a mural dedicated in August 1962 by an Eaton’s architect and designer, Charles Staffer, who passed away just two days before last week’s official opening. “Don Mills is internationally famous for its unique building forms,” the restored plaque reads, and the concurrently constructed public library on the opposite corner still offers charmingly renovated evidence of great expectations. The rest of the retail flanking the Shops on Don Mills, on the other hand, is a reminder of how good planning goes awry.



Nothing reflects the disconnect more than a big blue sign for Blockbuster Video, the beleaguered chain left stranded beneath a nondescript Donway West office building — the LCBO has moved to the new village, although the vacant campaign office for losing Don Valley West federal Conservative candidate John Carmichael has obviously not, resulting in no sign of life on a Sunday afternoon.

Also visible from the main drag are other shops and services that couldn’t possibly afford being part of the pricey new development — satellite strip malls that sprouted in the 1980s where a movie theatre and curling rink once bustled — and, for the old- timers, this preservation probably suits them just fine. Anthony’s Restaurant, on the ground floor of a banal RBC bank building, had plenty of customers for the $12.50 three-course senior’s special; the Mark McEwan gourmet food shop, opening in June, won’t be able to compete for their affections in the category of chicken pot pie.



Nonetheless, a new location of Jack Astor’s has been operating in the corner of the village for the past six months — alongside the slightly detached Metro supermarket, whose Dominion roots stretch back to 1955 — serving an area clientele whose beloved Pizza Hut was replaced by Congee Queen however many years ago. While blessed with swell weather for the first half of its opening weekend, with only half the tenants operational within the Shops at Don Mills, a blustery first Sunday offered insights into how the outdoor design might thrive during the winter months (i.e., it probably can’t).

Quickest on the draw to be open in time for the grand opening were the flashiest familiar names from comparable American developments: like Banana Republic, Eddie Bauer, Calvin Klein, Tommy Hilfiger and high-end Urban Outfitters spin-off Anthropologie. Yet the fact that so many others still weren’t open means that, for the sake of establishing atmosphere, they might as well have been shuttered due to the recession. As the 6pm closing time approached on Sunday, and roadies packed up the non-public square’s stage under the watch of restless mall cops, the ennui would have only delighted the long-gone Douglas Coupland (especially the fact that the closest thing to a coffee chain here — located in the direct shadow of his 12,000-pound, 35-foot- high, 12-house clock tower — has a name that might as well be from one of his novels: Teaopia). 



Downtowners craving a taste of developer-funded Couplandia are better off staking out his two Canadiana installations by the lakefront, however. McEwan, whose foodie shop will supposedly feel like New York! and Europe! and both!, was quoted saying he expects his clientele to get there by car, especially from the nearby Bridle Path. Residents in the apartments surrounding the Shops — vintage complexes with names like Laurenview Towers and Carolyn Court rendered in script likely inspired by the credits for I Love Lucy — can’t possibly be into such snobby stuff.

Which is the rationale for the Shops spawning residences all their own, as Cadillac Fairview intend to build 1,300 condo units, marketed on the basis that their neo-mall is the ultimate activities room for the aspirational retiree. What else would a community be planned for if not being an area in which you can live the rest of your entire life? Proof of what kind of emotions the neighbourhood instilled its in its rebellious children, however, can be found in singer Dan Hill’s recent memoir I Am My Father’s Son — suggesting Don Mills caused him all the angst he poured out into “Sometimes When We Touch.” Later, after learning the maudlin single was instantly sold out at the mall’s Music World store, his diffident dad at least promised them an autographed poster.

But since no one is going to rent space in a 2009 shopping complex for the sake of entertainment software, the Blockbuster is left to wither away in the corner, while the Shops at Don Mills is graced with the first Toronto location of McNally Robinson Booksellers — a strategic end to the decade-long strangehold of Indigo and Chapters on local large-scale literary retailing, and a trade-up from the past Don Mills Centre bookshops more likely to specialize in remaindered coffee table books consisting entirely of cat pictures. Here, the Prairie Ink restaurant incorporated into the construction becomes the elitist version of a department store cafeteria, albeit one that features a Philip Roth quote along the wall: “When a writer is born into a family, that family is finished.”

There was no such discord on display when the Winnipeg family that runs the place took turns speaking at a Sunday evening champagne toast. “This is the first opening where I wasn’t staggering to the podium,” boasted Holly McNally, who helped start the first store in 1981, with a business partner who soon bailed even though they couldn’t afford to change the sign. “I would be smiling on the outside but, on the inside, would be totally depleted.”

She then introduced husband Paul McNally, who has applied his Ph.D. in Romantic Poetry to figuring out how to turn plumbing tubes into railings on a staircase he seemingly built with his bare hands. “Please,” he pleaded to the gathering of book-industry types, “don’t stigmatize this as a chain.” Their daughter, Tory McNally, is the store’s director of operations, and everyone else on staff seems emotionally invested in making this slightly idiosyncratic Western Canadian concept work — where regular events featuring authors you haven’t heard of help to make them more famous and, in turn, sell more books. (Barring that, they have a good selection of gifts for the grandkids.)

And while life in Don Mills will thrum along as usual, the Douglas Coupland clock tower stands as a metaphor for the challenge involved in the suburban-culture business: how do you make a round hole out of square pegs tick — especially when the display is digital?

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