City Centre area getting bigger, and smaller, in Mississauga

Mississauga’s downtown core is getting bigger and smaller at the same time.

On the one hand, impressive highrises — mostly condos — continue to reach for the sky in the City Centre area around Square One Shopping Centre.

Accordingly, both the skyline of Canada’s seventh-largest city and its population — in the downtown sector — continue to grow.

On the other hand, the core of the metropolis located just west of Toronto has recently become much smaller as well — in one fun and particular way.

A scale model of Mississauga’s downtown, complete with relatively tiny versions of city hall, the Living Arts Centre, Square One and the many condos and office buildings in the area, is now set up for all to see. Grey-toned models in the display serve as place holders for buildings not yet completed.

“This model of City Centre is completed and on display on the ground floor of city hall,” Mayor Carolyn Parrish said in a post to social media on Thursday. “All are welcome to drop by and locate the buildings you recognize or may live in. Can you pick out city hall?”

The scaled-down replica sits in the Great Hall inside the Mississauga Civic Centre and is part of a dedicated effort by city officials to make city hall more welcoming to residents and others alike.

City hall in Mississauga. Officials want it to be a more welcoming destination for visitors.

One person who commented on the mayor’s post was struck by what might be yet to come in the city core.

“There’s so much potential on Rathburn Road; hope the city works with planners to have something special.”

Two other people who posted comments weren’t as impressed by the real, full-scale downtown core.

“It looks very crowded to us,” one person wrote.

“Isn’t concrete the biggest contributor to greenhouse gas emissions?” asked another.

Several city councillors expressed concern in January that Mississauga city hall had become a “very unfriendly” place for residents to visit.

Much like municipalities elsewhere in addition to most businesses, restaurants and public facilities across Canada, the City of Mississauga shut its doors — literally — to people shortly after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020.

While city hall and other Mississauga facilities largely reopened to the public in 2022 and 2023, councillors said earlier this year they wanted to more fully open the doors and re-establish in-person contact with the people they represent.

Parrish noted at the time she and several councillors had received complaints from the public about city hall not being welcoming and some services being difficult to access.