Santa Claus is having a hard time finding a place to land his sleigh in Orangeville this year.

The mayor of the town of roughly 29,000 inhabitants north of Toronto is scrambling to find a place for Father Christmas to set up shop after reconstruction work at the Orangeville Mall has forced the yearly meet-and-greet with Santa to go elsewhere.

Youngsters would have to travel upwards of 40 minutes to malls in Brampton or Newmarket if a solution wasn’t found, said Mayor Sandy Brown.

“I’m hoping that by Monday we can have something ironed out and we can have kids enjoy a visit with Santa,” Brown said. “I think we’re close.”

Brown said there was an exodus of stores from the mall, after Strathallen, a Toronto firm which owns the property, notified tenants this year that they would be starting redevelopment at the site.

“They have determined that they’re going to turn this into more of big box style of retail centre, as opposed to an indoor mall,” Brown said.

Another casualty of the redevelopment was Santa’s exhibit, which customarily sits inside the mall and attracts hundreds of children who flock to the booth to have their pictures taken with Saint Nicholas.

Brown said the city is working to secure space at the Adler Recreation Centre. But Santa doesn’t come cheap.

Costs issues, including staffing expenses for creating space at the arena, have to be cleared up before the city can give the green light, Brown said.

He said Michael Strachan, the owner of F-Stop Foto and Framing, which sells packages of photos with Santa, may have to foot some of the bill.

“There’s going to have to be some rent paid because there’s going to be a commercial enterprise running this,” Brown said.

When reached for comment Friday, Strachan confirmed he had put a call in to the mayor about finding a new site.

“It was left with the mayor, that if they’ve got a building available, we can proceed, otherwise, we can’t,” Strachan said.

Santa needs to get paid for his time as well, Brown said.

“We don’t want to spoil the deal for the kids but that’s the reality, these people don’t do this for volunteer time,” he said.

Mall owner Strathallen has agreed to shoulder some costs.

“We have discussed with others what we can do and are willing to contribute in light of the construction,” said Ben Cressman, a senior asset manager with Strathallen.

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Cressman said the company will be releasing more details about the redevelopment on Monday.

Brown said the mall’s current mix of mainstream and independent operations has been struggling for some time and was in need of a refresh.

“This is part of the Amazon-effect on retail and our Santa issue is collateral damage,” he said.