County Fair Mall is an enclosed shopping centre in Thunder Bay, Ontario. It is located on the northern end of Thunder Bay where there is primarily suburban development. The current anchors are Walmart Supercentre and No Frills. Other tenants include Dollarama, Fabricland, and a Thunder Bay public library branch. Other then these tenants, there is little to no other stores, as most stores have vacated over the past 20 years.
History[]
The County Fair Mall opened on August 12th, 1969 as the first enclosed mall in the Thunder Bay area. The original anchors of the property were Zellers County Fair, Canadian Tire, and Dominion. At the time of opening, the mall was very popular with a variety of stores.
13 years after the mall opened in 1982, the Intercity Shopping Centre opened for business around 5 kilometers away. This mall was in a better location, and was much bigger and modern compared to County Fair Mall. Because of this, County Fair Mall became secondary and lost some of its national tenants.
In the 1980s, Dominion closed. Quality Markets opened in the space in 1989.
In 2001, Canadian Tire closed its County Fair Mall location and moved to Thunder Centre, a power centre across the street from Intercity Shopping Centre. Originally, a fitness centre was planned for the space. However, Canadian Tire, who still owned the store, denied County Fair Mall from using the space. Today, Canadian Tire still owns the store and refuses anyone to use the store for anything. Because of this, the Canadian Tire was walled off from the main mall concourse. This caused a decline in the mall and several stores closed.
In 2010 and 2011, both Shoppers Drug Mart and Quality Markets, the malls grocery store permanently closed. By 2012, the County Fair Mall had a 50% occupancy rate. Meaning around half of the malls tenants were vacant. The number of vacancies continued to grow over the next few years.
In June of 2012, Zellers permanently closed. By the end of the year, a Walmart Supercentre opened in its place. However, the Walmart didn't have an interior entrance. Around this time, Robin's Donuts closed, this was the last food vendor in the food court of the mall, today, the malls food court remains empty with no vendors.
In 2017, a new Dollarama (opened in a former Buck or Two) and No Frills grocery store opened in the mall. As both of these stores had exterior entrances, this didn't effect the mall too much.
In 2018, a Fabricland opened in the mall. Even though the store is only accessible by going inside the mall, it still didn't have too much of an effect on the mall.
In 2022, Bank of Montreal, one of the last interior tenants, moved to an outparcel next to No Frills. Dollarama expanded their store into this space.
Today, some of the last tenants of the mall, such as the library and Fabricland, are the only reason people go inside the mall. The future of the mall is uncertain, it is likely to be demolished in the near future and turned into a shopping plaza with Walmart and No Frills on ether end.
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