Shops on Yonge

This unfortunately had the potential to be a really interesting mall, however for some reason I don’t think it will ever be a place people want to go to. Located in Markham this is a multi-​level mall that has a Asian grocery store on the lower level as an anchor. The supermarket itself is pretty busy, but since there is direct access from the parking lot to the grocery store I don’t think many people venture to the other levels to see what is going on.
I was here after work (around 6:30pm) and there were lots of store that were closed/​empty just waiting to be leased and then there were quite a few stores that had closed up for the day, which on one hand I understand if you are not getting the busy it seems silly to sit there for a few more hours… but on the other hand for people who shop after work it is disappointing.
The mall is a mix of Asian ethnic cultures — Chinese, Korean, Persian and a lot of stores that I saw that were open were nail salons, eye glass places, phone accessories etc. There is also a food court on the upper level but I didn’t go up that far.
There is some parking right in the front and a larger lot behind the mall. Parking in the front is odd and confusing… it’s one way, narrow lanes and I could see how it would definitely get crowded as there are only about 40 or spaces at the front.
Unfortunately even if I lived in one of the buildings nearby I still wouldn’t visit this mall.

Shops on Yonge had opened its doors for almost 2 years. The first time I went there was 1 year ago when the Supermarket just opened up and new business was moving in and trying their luck with the promise of business from the condo development in the immediate area.
Back then was less than 50% occupied with a mixture of business from different ethnic groups: Korean, Chinese, Persian.
A year later, I was hoping that more business would have moved in but sadly a lot of the original business was no longer here and no new business brave enough to open up new venture.
The mall has quite a nice set up but definitely lack any foot traffic. The supermarket in the basement area is the busiest of them all but with underground parking attached to the supermarket most customers are not going to visit other stores/​business upstairs.
I feel sorry for the investors that bought the units and not able to rent it out for over 1 year. But it is just not a good location to start a business here unless you already have a good client base and they willing to visit your new location!

The new (I’m not sure how new? citation DEFINITELY needed) Shops on Yonge is a 3-​floor retail complex located in the also-​new World on Yonge condominium complex on Yonge Street just north of Steeles. After having some yummy Korean food on Friday night, the wife and I decided to go for a little walkies and we thought why not check out this new mall? We actually distantly know of someone who is a tenant here and have heard of this place but never been to before.
Getting in and being able to park properly is half the (utterly confusing) battle. If you just drive and turn right from Yonge and immediately park in the little parking parkade in front of the mall, you’ll see that everything there says 20 minutes parking. This is because there is quite a bit of retail stores that are located in a plaza outside the indoor mall (isn’t that typical of stores in the GTA though? Even though there is already an indoor mall, the developers ALWAYS have a fetish of sorts to add a strip mall). So you actually have to go into a deeper parking lot that is indoors, where you will enter through the supermarket.
The supermarket deserves its own review but suffice to say that it is a pretty nice and clean one and will be the centre of focus for 99% of the people who come here. Why is that? Well because, sadly, once again an Asian-​focused mall in the GTA has shown that it simply turns into another Pacific Mall. No real cute Asian retailers and no established Western ones either, unless you want to include a Rogers store (and I don’t). It’s just a collection of small mom and pop shops selling small knick knacks, most of which aren’t terribly interesting (small stores, small collection, basically a stripped down version of PMall), and even more of them are tenantless. There IS a food court on the top floor, which is nice and spacious and sparkling clean like the rest of the mall, but it was mostly closed on a Friday night at 8 pm.
The mall was MOSTLY DEAD at 8 pm. Nobody could be bothered to open, apart from the supermarket. I really wanted to love this mall. It’s not often we get a new indoor shopping area in the GTA, as all we get are more and more goddamn strip malls. And this one is new, clean, bright, with a nice logo and design (something which appeals to me endlessly as a marketing guy). But there’s nothing there. Maybe next time we’ll try to come here and sample the food court when there’s a bit more life, and yes maybe we didn’t come at the right place, and yes maybe we came too soon. But I can only review what I saw. And all I can say to sum it up is: «Great potential for pleasant shopping experience but nothing there».