The Hub Shopping Centre (Formerly Truro Mall) is an enclosed shopping centre in Truro, NS. Its current anchors are Rossy, Home Hardware, Winners, Sport Chek, Michaels, and PetSmart.
History[]
In the summer of 1974, construction began on Truro Mall, the mall was originally owned by The Rocca Group, who also built Charlottetown Mall (Now Royalty Crossing Mall) and South Centre Mall
The mall had an opening date of August 1975, its original anchors were Dominion and Kmart, with a two-screen Empire Theatres included in the mix. Inside, there were 26 tenants on opening day, such as Smart Set and Marks & Spencer.
Truro Mall quickly overtook Fundy Trail Centre as the dominant mall in Truro, as it was the larger mall with more stores.
In 1985, following the Oshawa Group buyout, Dominion was re-branded to IGA
During the 1980s, Empire Theatres could only show second-rate movies, aiming to encourage patrons to visit the new Empire Theatres built on the outskirts of Truro, becuase of this, the management of the mall filed a lawsuit against Empire Theatres, but the lawsuit didn't go in their favor, and the theatre in Truro Mall closed in the late 1980s.
In 1989, a renovation and large expansion of the mall was complete, new skylights were added, the mall tile was re-done, a food court was added, a new wing of the mall opened, and Sears and People's Department Store opened as new anchors.
In 1995, People's went bankrupt and closed its store at the mall. Part of it was later replaced by Dollarama.
In 1998, the Hudson’s Bay Company acquired Kmart Canada, resulting in most stores being rebranded as Zellers. In Truro, the Fundy Trail Centre location closed, and a Zellers occupied the former Kmart Canada space.
In 1999, the IGA store closed. It was replaced with a Mark's and a Shoppers Drug Mart (Which moved in the 2000s to Fundy Trail Centre.)
In 2008, Greco Pizza relocated from the food court to a standalone store in the mall’s parking lot.
On March 17th, 2013, the Zellers location closed at Truro Mall, leaving a large empty space in the mall. Soon after, they expanded the mall hallway into the Zellers space, the rest of the store was divvyed into several store spaces. The first two stores to open in the new hallway space were Winners and Michael's.
In 2015, a Rossy opened in another part of the former Zellers space, there was now only one major retail space up for grabs.
In 2017, the Sears at the mall closed, it remained vacant for several years, starting a decline in the Sears wing of the mall, several tenants closed post Sears closure.
In the late 2010s, the mall began to decline, A&W closed in the food court and multiple other retailers closed, although Truro Mall was never a dead mall, at this point in time, it was a dying mall.
New Management and resurgence of The Hub / Truro Mall[]
In June of 2021, Truro Mall was purchased by RCS Construction and Arnold Hagen, who is the franchise owner of the Truro area Home Hardware stores. They quickly got to work on making this dying mall a successful one again. Truro Mall was re-branded to The Hub Shopping Centre and all of the mall entrances were re-done with new signage and automatic doors. One of the Truro Home Hardware stores relocated into the former Sears space, and a PetSmart moved into the last remaining space of the former Zellers.
The Food court was temporarily closed to facilitate a renovation and expansion. New stalls were added and the food court was re-named to "the Local Hub Food Hall."
In the parking lot of the mall, A Mary Brown's Chicken was built and a two story office / retail structure was built in the Home Hardware parking lot.
The Hub Shopping Centre has had a resurgence in recent years, they now have almost every store filled in the mall, it's now one of the most popular and successful malls outside of Halifax in Nova Scotia.
Interactive Mall Directory[]
Main Article: Map: The Hub Shopping Centre
See Also[]
- A modern walkthrough of the mall: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F67bq6GwBiM (Note that the video is on a Sunday in the morning before most of the stores were open yet, that's why there's no one there.)
- A tour of the Sears at Truro Mall when it was closing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1iaSAxkDEc
- A full tour of the mall from 2015: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5tW0wrGWoY
- Fundy Trail Centre - A competitor to Truro Mall