Mary's Corner Store, an icon of the Bowness community since the early 1940s, has been demolished.

Owners have come and gone over the years, but one thing remained the same — the central role it played in the community.

The store suffered severe water damage during last June's floods in Calgary . It's not clear if the current owners plan to build a new store.

Starting over after having a "closed" sign up for such a long time could bring new challenges, said Scott Crockatt, a director at the Calgary Chamber of Commerce.

"A lot of your customers will have been shopping elsewhere and so there will be the need to re-establish some of those relationships.There's also supplier relationships and also a host of others issues associated with the increased costs of needing to reopen again."

People have been flocking to the Bowness Community Association's Facebook page to share their memories.

Many older residents say it's one of the first places they walked to on their own as a child and where they went on allowance day for penny candy.

"It's a loss because that was a real sort of landmark almost where people would go. When it closed because of the floods in June, people were really missing it," said Carole Carpenter, president of the Bowness Historical Society.