 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
Shopping Centers Today -> April 2003
 PRINT THIS STORY: |
  CHANGE TEXT SIZE: |
JAMES E. KELLEY JR., 82, CANADIAN MALL PIONEER
 |
James E. Kelley Jr., an ICSC past chairman who set a course for shopping center development in Canada with several malls, died in February after a brief illness. He was 82.
Kelley was born in the United States and moved to Canada sometime after World War II as an engineer to build a power plant. Not long after that, he joined North York, Ontario-based Don Mills Development Co. as a vice president and general manager, and there he discovered that it was the building of shopping centers that really captivated him. The company built the 2,200-acre Don Mills planned community on what was then the outskirts of Toronto, a project that included the Don Mills Shopping Centre.
Canadian shopping center development got a major boost when Kelley launched Toronto-based development firm Columbia Commonwealth in the mid-1950s. Its projects included St. Laurent Centre, Ottawa’s first enclosed mall; and Garden City Shopping Centre, Winnipeg, Manitoba.
“Jim was at the very start of shopping centers in Canada,” said Gordon Peck, who owned a jewelry store in the Don Mills Shopping Centre and today is senior vice president of retail at J.J. Barnicke, Toronto, a commercial real estate services firm. “When he was developing shopping centers, there was little or no competition.”
Kelley was the first Canadian ICSC chairman, serving for the 1967Ð1968 term. Before that, he served as a trustee from 1959 to 1966.
 | Current Issue November 2008 |