Wan Hyun Kim has been running a shoe repair shop in Saint-Léonard's Le Boulevard shopping centre for 32 years but all that hard work will come to an end soon when the mall closes to make way for the Metro's Blue line extension.

Learning the mall was closing was a shock to everybody, he said.

"We don't know what they're going to do," Hyun Kim said. "What they told me is find a new place, but close to this area it's not easy. Even me, I think about it every day but it's too much stress. I don't know what I'm going to do."

Le Boulevard opened in Saint-Léonard 70 years ago, serving generations of shoppers there to pick up groceries, buy a lawnmower or replenish their wardrobe. 

But those shoppers will have to head elsewhere starting next fall, as the mall, located at the corner of Jean-Talon Street and Pie-IX Boulevard, was purchased by the Société de transport de Montréal (STM) as part of an expropriation deal with the building's owner.

Only part of the lot Le Boulevard sits on was needed to construct the new station but the mall's owners, Crofton Moore, took the province before an administrative tribunal and forced it to expropriate it all.

In an interview with Radio-Canada, STM board chair Philippe Schnobb said that the owners felt they would lose too much money if the STM took just a chunk of the parking lot.

Ultimately the deal ended up costing the transit authority more than double what it had planned.

Schnobb said they budgeted $50 million to acquire the land but ended up having to spend $115 million.

He added that it will be up to the tribunal to decide how much compensation will have to be paid to the commercial renters who are losing their locations.

To offset the costs, Mayor Valérie Plante's administration is proposing to sell the rest of the property.