By Tim Lambrinos
Toronto’s historical archives say that in December 1956 the Ford Motor Company purchased 41 acres of land on the south side of Sheppard Avenue immediately west of Highway 400. The Official Plan of the borough deemed the land best for industrial use.
At that time, Ford Canada had forecasted a growing need for storage. Overflow and warehousing would be required for automobile parts on newly designed Canadian models the Ford Meteor and the Ford Rideau. For reasons unknown, a building never took shape but a deal apparently materialized as a “quick flip” when Ford Canada decided to not build a warehouse for themselves.
Timothy Eaton Company did develop the property with a brand-new massive distribution warehouse built in 1958.
As many know, Eaton’s is a company firmly rooted in Canada’s cultural landscape. It was established in 1869 by Irish immigrant Timothy Eaton and grew to be Canada’s largest department store retailer. In 1958, plans were drafted to build a new giant warehouse along Sheppard Avenue West, 800 metres east of Weston Road. Thebrown-brick building was to be used for storage as a main distribution centre for all Eaton’s stores in Ontario, Montreal and Winnipeg. The building had a separate section dedicated to Eaton’s popular national catalogue. The building itself was strategically situated adjacent to the CPR trains tracks so that all incoming supplies could arrive by rail but exit by truck. The huge complex still has all of it’s original shipping doors in place. It allows 200 full-size transport-trailers to pick up and deliver at any given time.
In the 60s, Eaton’s opened many large retail department stores across Canada that required daily delivery of new merchandise. Eaton’s also realized they must maintain a reputation of providing customers with timely mail-order catalogue service. Large warehousing was essential to have any long-term success in retail department store sales or to have an esteemed national mail-order service. Eaton’s warehouse on Sheppard Avenue West also housed a small wholesale retail outlet that operated in the north side of the building for three decades.
Eaton’s Warehouse employed many Emery residents, both full-time and part-time in their 42 years of operation. The company closed their doors and ceased operations at the warehouse in the year 2000. At the building’s operational peak in the late 1960’s, Eaton’s warehouse had 3,000 employees. Information had been conveyed to the Emery Village BIA by daughter Lucy Stocco that local Italian immigrant and resident, Zita (Milani) Stocco worked at the Eaton’s Warehouse for a number of years. Zita was born in Italy as a Milani and was the sister of CamilloMilani, the chief builder of Emery Village’s industrial core. According to Lucy, ZitaStocco was the first female immigrant of Italian descent to receive an Ontario driver’s licence.
These days, the 1958 warehouse building along Sheppard Avenuehouses one of Canada’s largest and newest monster hardware chains. A Home Depot distribution Centre opened in 2005.
Home Depot has also created a connection to wholesale market sales with the opening of the Home Depot Innovation Centre in the north-west corner of the building.
Access for vendors is permissible from 7:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. for vendor sales merchandising with no access to retail public sales however.
In researching many of theparticulars about the Eaton’s Warehouse and the old Eaton’s Service Road (Bartor Road), the Emery Village Voice was most honoured to interview long-time Eaton’s warehouse authority, Gerry Bellizzi of Bentall Kennedy.