Shoppers Drug Mart won’t have far to move when it takes over the Runnymede Theatre, currently home to Chapters bookstore.
The pharmacy has confirmed it will be relocating from its spot at Windermere Avenue and Bloor Street West into the Chapters Indigo space in the summer of 2014.
The new store will offer a “beautyBOUTIQUE” along with other enhancements that have yet to be confirmed.
“We look forward to offering our customers and patients an enhanced level of the everyday health, beauty and convenience products and services they have come to trust,” said spokesperson Lana Gogas.
Shoppers assured it will be retaining all of the existing historical features, interior and exterior, including the stage and interior walls.
Parkdale-High Park Councillor Sarah Doucette said she has been in touch with the city’s preservation services to determine what Shoppers can and cannot do in terms of renovations.
Chapters must vacate the premises by March 31. The bookstore will close about a month beforehand, said Drew McGowen, vice-president of real estate for Indigo Books and Music Inc., who had nothing, but compliments for the store and the neighbourhood.
Chapters’ 15 year lease is up and the landlord “can get far more money than we are able to pay,” he said.
McGowen called the store “an icon.” Its architecture and heritage “goes hand-in-hand with a bookstore,” he said.
“The neighbourhood is so fantastic. It’s a store that has little to no parking, but people walk to it all the time,” he told The Villager in an earlier interview.
In 1999, Chapters redeveloped the old theatre, the “Runny” as it was affectionately called, into a bookstore while keeping the cinema’s atmospheric interior in tact. Built in June, 1927, the vaudeville theatre – designed to transport patrons to exotic places – was the first of its kind in Toronto. Designed by Alfred Chapman, it was known for its music and stage shows and could seat as many as 1,400 people. The ceiling was painted to depict a blue sky with puffy clouds; its complex lighting system projected a starry night and airplanes.
The atmospheric-style theatre is one of only three left in Canada.