Centre Laval was Laval's first modern, enclosed shopping mall. Until then the block-long St Martin strip mall built in 1956 by Ivanhoe had been the largest. Centre Laval began in 1968 with 50 stores and anchored by Famous Players theatre, Woolco and Steinberg's. A mall expansion was supposed to be anchored by Morgan. But by the time the expansion was completed, the Morgan chain had been renamed to The Bay and the store at Centre Laval inaugurated on August 17, 1972 under the new banner. Centre Laval had two more expansions before reaching its current size in 1991.