A business giant is moving in and a longtime retailer out, as the conversion of downtown London’s mall away from merchandising continues.

PwC, or Pricewaterhouse­Coopers, a multinational accounting and consulting company, has leased space on the south side of the CitiPlaza complex and is now renovating.

Right next door, the Bargain Shop, which traces its roots back to the iconic Woolworth retail chain, is shutting down this month.

The PwC space was formerly occupied by Fanshawe College for its downtown campus, but that has moved to the college’s new Howard Rundle Building at 137 Dundas St.

PwC spokesperson David Gollom said the company won’t release details on its operation for a few months, but that the new space is an expansion and won’t affect the company’s office at 465 Richmond St.

The Bargain Shop, one of last discount retailers in the downtown core, is selling off its stocks, including fixtures.

The store traces its roots back to Woolworth, which first entered the London market in 1913, with a store on Dundas Street near Richmond.

Woolworth converted some its stores to the Bargain Shop brand in the early 1990s. The chain was later sold to an investment company and is now part of Red Apple Stores Inc. A Bargain Shop location in downtown Kitchener shut down earlier this year.

The loss of the Bargain Shop is the latest in a long exodus of retailers from the mall since it first opened as Galleria London in 1989. Much of the space has since been converted for office and educational use, and the London Central Library.

Lorraine Landgren of Avison Young, the mall’s property managers, said there are no immediate plans for the Bargain Shop space. “The whole mall has been repurposed, so we are looking at different options such as office or education

. . . We don’t need a lot of retail in there, but we still need the service industry,” she said.

hank.daniszewski@sunmedia.ca

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