Straight ahead, you’ll spot the Midtown Plaza with its grand brick façade, triangular glass roof peaks, and the tall Midtown Tower rising behind-it sits right at the end of the street, nestled between lines of leafy trees and parked cars.
You’re standing in front of Midtown, Saskatoon’s shopping marvel and a place where the scent of cinnamon pretzels has battled for decades with the distant, hopeful whiff of popcorn from long-gone movie nights. It might look like just a modern mall now, but this spot has traveled through time more than a superhero with a forgetful sidekick!
Picture 1960s Saskatoon-steam engines rumbling in, the clang of iron wheels on rails, and pigeons scattering as the city’s main railway station sits where Midtown is today. But change was coming on a freight train of its own, part of a sweeping plan that gave Saskatoon not just a new bridge and an arts centre, but its crown jewel of commerce: the Midtown shopping mall. Ground was broken, steel went up, and soon, the click of suitcases on the station platform was replaced by the jingle of coins and the squeak of shopping carts.
The doors of Midtown opened on July 30, 1970, and the place had just 51 stores and services-though, let’s be honest, with an underground parking garage you didn’t have to shovel, people would’ve shopped here even if the best deal was on socks. There was excitement in the air and plenty of polyester. Long before the age of “anchor” tenants closing like dominos, Simpsons-Sears planted its flag in 1968, beating everyone else to the punch. Eaton’s followed, and shoppers flocked like birds chasing spilled popcorn.
The 1970s and 80s brought flavors of their own, with the city’s first-ever mall cinema popping up here-imagine the thrill as folks watched blockbusters, not far from where shoppers tried not to trip over each other at the Dominion grocery store or zipped in for last-minute shoes. The cinema doubled its screens, calling itself a “multiplex”-a fancy word for “now you can lose your friends twice as fast trying to find the right movie!” Eventually, the lights dimmed for good by 2000, and the space turned into pop-up shops and exhibits before giving in to the hunger for more stores (and let’s face it-more parking).
But Midtown was always changing its outfit. In 1990, a second storey blossomed atop the original building, while architects gave the façade a clever nod to that old 1900s train station with charming peaked roofs and vertical lines. Rumor has it, some sighs of nostalgia floated through the air with the cement dust. Around the same time, a new toy superhero landed in the parking lot-Saskatoon’s first Toys "R" Us, still there today, possibly haunted by the ghosts of forgotten teddy bears.
And, let’s not forget Midtown’s towering sidekick-the Midtown Tower-once the tallest office building around! From the 1970s to early 2000s, the fifth floor buzzed as the home of CBKST, the CBC TV station-somewhere in the archives, there’s probably a clip of a newscaster struggling with their tie while thousands of shoppers strolled below.
Over the years, Midtown added, lost, and reshuffled stores like a gambler shuffling cards. Dominion’s grocery carts rolled away in the 80s. Eaton’s fell in 1999. Sears abandoned ship in 2018. Hudson’s Bay just closed in 2025-the mighty have fallen and taken their winter coat sales with them. And through it all, flashier retailers sprang up. H&M opened its doors in 2020, a second chance for fashionistas. A new wing promised a sparkling future, with a food court called Midtown Common bringing the smell of fries and chatter of teenagers back into the spotlight.
There’s humor here too-the fate of MEC, the outdoor store, became a whole mall soap opera: opening delayed, corporate drama, and as of 2025, still nothing but dreams and maybe a squirrel living in the construction dust.
So as you gaze at Midtown Plaza, you’re not just looking at a shopping centre. You’re standing where trains gave way to escalators, where blockbusters became bargains, and where change is always on sale-sometimes at half price, sometimes a little more.
