The Official Saint John, NB Project Thread

[bigrivernb]

Happy 10k anniversary....

[KnoxfordGuy]

This may have already been common knowledge but I see the Saint John website has some awesome webcam views of the city! I feel like this must be pretty recent.

[Franco401]

Originally Posted by KnoxfordGuy

This may have already been common knowledge but I see the Saint John website has some awesome webcam views of the city! I feel like this must be pretty recent.

Link?

[KnoxfordGuy]

Here is the link to the webcams http://www.saintjohn.ca/en/home/city...ebcameras.aspx

[CdnEh]

Originally Posted by Wolkenkratzerliebhab

I wonder what is going to happen to the space Target is leasing in McAllister Place now that the American company is giving up on Canada? I just hope Sears doesn't follow suit or the mall will become a dead mall in no time.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/targ...ores-1.2901618

Will it though? Is Sears really that big of a draw that foot traffic would slow to the point where it would have a negative effect?

There's a reason Sears is closing - nobody goes there. The place is an empty wasteland.

[nwalbert]

Originally Posted by CdnEh

Will it though? Is Sears really that big of a draw that foot traffic would slow to the point where it would have a negative effect?

There's a reason Sears is closing - nobody goes there. The place is an empty wasteland.

Agreed, I don't see either Sears or Taget impacting the mall a great deal. The Target space will be a filled with another large retailer.

Folks that came to Sears very rarely ventured into the mall and vice versa. Very different demographics being served.

[thefishingnut]

Every time I went in Target I came out frustrated that I had wasted the time to see if they actually had something of value in whatever it was I was hunting down at the time - shoes, kids boots, whatever. No Target will IMPROVE my shopping experience at McAllister. Maybe it's time to redo the retail model, and let the good at nothing/mediocre at everything big box guys have their own buildings and have the malls have more specialist stores with decent stuff instead of junk, and let the junk hunters just go elsewhere.

[JHikka]

Originally Posted by thefishingnut

No Target will IMPROVE my shopping experience at McAllister. Maybe it's time to redo the retail model, and let the good at nothing/mediocre at everything big box guys have their own buildings and have the malls have more specialist stores with decent stuff instead of junk, and let the junk hunters just go elsewhere.

This is probably a bit of an exaggeration. Suburban malls, in and of themselves, are quickly dying a quick death. The days of anchor tenants, miles of parking, and isolation are slowly dwindling away as rents, assessments, distribution, and a plethora of other issues do them in. The only malls really doing well these days are urban malls (think Uptown) that are interconnected with other businesses, condos, and other attractions in tight urban areas.

[Fischbob]

The TJ is reporting that Cathedral Place has achieved full occupancy, exceeding expectations for the project's unit absorption.





The article also mentions that the rezoning proposal for St. Vincent's will be voted on at next Monday's Council meeting, and that efforts to raise funds for the Cathedral restoration continue.

In other news:

- The developer of Gothic Arches has released their preferred configuration for that project: they've decided to go for a simple adaptive reuse project within the existing envelope of the building. This will be a lot less dramatic than some of the conceptual renders we've seen, but it's still going to be an awesome project: the 26 condos will more than double the density of the block. The project website is live here: http://www.gothicarches.ca/

- I've heard that PAC tabled the Paramount parking lot application at their meeting last week in order to get more information. In particular, they're looking into the legality of including a sunset clause (i.e. limiting the site's use as a parking lot to a finite period of time) as one of the conditions it imposes. Stay tuned!

[RR Drummer]

Saint John is doing its best with all the recent snowfall. I can't remember a time when we had this much snow fall in such a short period of time. It's nice to see people helping each other out with snow removal, errands, etc. It's times like these that really define a community.

[Fischbob]

It's the most snow I've ever seen around here too! I found this infographic both amusing and illustrative of what we're up against:


Source: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/...click=sf_globe

And I agree with you on the heightened civic spirit we're experiencing - getting out there and making a difference turns out to be a nice remedy to the cloud of pessimism we're used to!

[RR Drummer]

Great infographic. The snow has piled on for sure. I say why not make the best of it? In 6 weeks give or take we will be well over the worst of winter and heading quickly into spring.

[Walk then Run]

It is has indeed been a challenging time with all the shoveling and decisions on where to put the darn stuff!

I'm not too sure if SJ got hit as hard back then, but I still remember the nasty 5ft snow storm of '92 , which devistated Moncton...I dont know what is worse, getting it over a few days or over a week. At least we had a few days to recover...I guess

We should start marking our snow storms according to the newly created "Sutherland" scale...the last 40cm being a 4.0 on the Sutherland scale.

Here is my proposed Sutherland Scale:
Every 10cm equals 1.0

Example: if the official snow fall is 28cm, then that would be a 2.8 on the Sutherland scale

I like it!

[CdnEh]

It would appear that the great Rothesay Ave car dealer musical chairs game continues, with Fundy Honda moving into the former Centennial Buick/GMC building. Renovations appear to be extensive.

[flwright]

Originally Posted by Walk then Run

Here is my proposed Sutherland Scale:
Every 10cm equals 1.0

Example: if the official snow fall is 28cm, then that would be a 2.8 on the Sutherland scale

Just my two cents:

In the same way that "1 foot" in the imperial system was actually based on the length of King Henry's foot, if Donald Sutherland is 193cm, then I suggest that should equal "1.0 Sutherland."

Therefore:

28cm of snow divided by 193cm per Sutherland = 0.15 Sutherlands

[Ire Narissis]

Originally Posted by flwright

Just my two cents:

In the same way that "1 foot" in the imperial system was actually based on the length of King Henry's foot, if Donald Sutherland is 193cm, then I suggest that should equal "1.0 Sutherland."

Therefore:

28cm of snow divided by 193cm per Sutherland = 0.15 Sutherlands

I support this.

We could also break this down into SI unit prefixes, so that 28cm of snow would be 0.15 Sutherlands of snow, or 150 milliSutherlands.

[dhottawa729]

I wish there was a 'like' button on here.
You guys have been getting so much snow that it almost legitimately suits discussion on this page, lol! I recon you'll have 1500 millisutherlands by the end of the month the way this is going!

[Ire Narissis]

The symbol shall be Su.

1 Su = 193 cm of snowfall.

This would put our average heavy snow of 20ish cm right around 1 cSu or 10 mSu.

[Walk then Run]

You guys are awesome! I absolutely love the Imperial take on the scale!

[Fischbob]

My apologies for sleeping at the switch everyone, didn't realize PAC was this week.

The conditional use of the former Paramount site as a surface parking lot is back on the agenda - here is the updated situation in its entirety:




tl;dr - Because a commercial parking lot was allowed to replace a demolished Uptown building as-of-right under the conditional approval mechanism of the previous Zoning Bylaw (in force when the Paramount came down), a temporary approval/sunset clause is out of the scope of what PAC can impose. In other words, a parking lot on the former Paramount site cannot legally be stopped.

• Video Link

Granted, I don't yet have any insider info on what went down at tonight's meeting, so, as always, stay tuned.