[Moncton] Northwest/Magnetic Hill Developments

[micks5477]

Myles, I think your idea is something that could be done. Mountain Road is very bad especially during rush hour. Accidents are always happening because of it also. I think going under Wheeler with on/off ramps would work better and it would be less costly.

[MonctonRad]

Another thought regarding the possibility of reconnecting Ryan Street by an overpass over Mountain Road. Peruse the following image:



- instead of Myles idea of having an interchange at Ryan/Wheeler, this proposal is more interested in reestablishing the possibility of a suburban street grid that was lost when Wheeler Blvd was built 30 years ago.

- Inbound traffic could use Ryan to bypass the Mountain/Wheeler interchange on the way downtown.
- The Mountain/Ryan intersection would still be problematic for outbound traffic as a left turn onto Ryan so close to the Mountain/Wheeler interchange would likely cause traffic chaos.
- Solution would be to extend Ayer Avenue behind the Northwest Centre so that it connects to Ryan Street.
- This would allow outbound traffic to turn left from Mountain onto Birchmount and then onto Ayer to Ryan Street.
- Another advantage of extending Ayer to a reconnected Ryan Street is that this would allow the Pinehurst and Hildegarde neighbourhoods to become reconnected.

Thoughts???

[josh_cat_eyes]

I still think direct access to Ryan from wheeler will become a nesseaity. I constantly am stuck behind traffic going North on mountain trying to turn onto Hildegard. I'm working on an idea that is similar to yours and Myles I'll try to post it soon.

[josh_cat_eyes]

Here is my proposal. I arranged the streets so they would put traffic onto a arterial street connecting Wheeler with Mountain. This street would be similar to Hildegard in that it has no, or very little, direct street access to homes and businesses. Another thing, I named 3 streets after the 3 RCMP officers who were killed in that area of Moncton, I thought it would be a fitting tribute.

Along with this proposal is another proposal to move NBCC away from the retail area that it doesn't fit in, to somewhere downtown, or at least close to downtown. This would immediately increase the amount of people living downtown. The building itself in my opinion is an eyesore. It looks like a crappy old college that I would never want to attend.

I also included some potential future retailers just for fun. I did include Home Outfitters simply because the combined space of Princess Auto and Pet Culture is 36,831 sq.ft. , plus there is room for expansion. The Halifax store is actually only 34,950 sq.ft so it would be smaller.

[MonctonRad]

Interesting Josh, you've certainly gone for the "big fix" solution.

I like a lot of your ideas, but of course they are impractical. NBCC isn't going anywhere, especially since they built that new business school behind the main building about 2-3 years ago. That cost about $10M or so to build I believe.

Your street grid in the last wooded areas in the neighbourhood make sense, and I like your idea of naming a few of the streets in honour of the fallen RCMP members. I like the concept of extending Hildegarde Street to form the interchange with Wheeler Blvd. I've often thought that Hildegarde should be extended in some way through to Berry Mills myself, perhaps to intersect with Edinburgh at the Moncton Industrial Park.

Wheeler Blvd forms a distinct boundary between central Moncton and the northwest end. In many ways this is unfortunate and it is really sad to see how a potential street grid system has been disrupted. This of course happens all the time with four lane limited access highways. They are just as effective in creating a boundary as a river is. The result is "choke points" where interchanges exist. This serves to concentrate and to congest traffic flow, which is just what we see at Wheeler/Mountain. If a street grid could be created or preserved, there would be less of that.

[MonctonRad]

The final vacant storefront in the Trinity Dental Group plaza (where Goji's is), at the Trinity/Mountain intersection has been filled.

Sequoia natural and organic products will be moving in. Their sign has already been installed between Cara Shoes and Klozet Boutique. This will be their third location in greater Moncton.

http://sequoiaorganics.ca

[MonctonRad]

The "Future Inns" sign has been removed from the front of the hotel on Lady Ava Blvd. I guess the rebranding of this hotel to a Four Points by Sheraton must now be fully underway.......

[josh_cat_eyes]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

The "Future Inns" sign has been removed from the front of the hotel on Lady Ava Blvd. I guess the rebranding of this hotel to a Four Points by Sheraton must now be fully underway.......

The Motel 6 should soon be converting to Quailty Inn. I don't don't remember when but I'm pretty sure my source told me December.

[MonctonRad]

I'll bet you guys didn't realize that the Magnetic Hill area has quietly been becoming the home of the New Brunswick viticulture industry.

The Magnetic Hill Winery has been around for about a half dozen years, and got it's start with fruit wines, but in the last couple of years, they have been becoming quite serious about standard wines and have planted several vineyards in and around their winery on Front Mountain Road in behind Magic Mountain. It looks quite nice out there now.

In addition, the Pumphouse Brewery has recently gotten serious about branching into the wine business as well. They have a professional vintner now and are experimenting with a production facility in their plant on Mill Road. They have planted several acres of grapevines off of Whitfield Trites Road on the south facing slope of Lutes Mountain. This is only a few hundred metres from the Magnetic Hill Winery, so there is a little concentration of industry developing here.

It might seem strange to place a couple of wineries here in Moncton, but this area of the city features a south facing exposure and steep well drained soils. It is probably one of the best places in the entire province for grapevines to grow. There is room for expansion out there too ( if it isn't snapped up by housing first). It will be interesting to see how this pans out.

[BlackYear]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

I'll bet you guys didn't realize that the Magnetic Hill area has quietly been becoming the home of the New Brunswick viticulture industry.

It was the first thing that came to mind after I read the story in the T&T. Being a wino myself, I think it great!

Just another great way to diversify Magnetic Hill's image as being the go to place for tourism.

[MonctonRad]

Maritime/Ontario trucking terminal (and regional offices) on Berry Mills Road - current status:



To give an idea of the scale of this building, each of those plastic covered openings on the side of the building is a truck loading bay. There are a total of twenty of them on this side of the building, and another twenty on the other side of the building. This is apparently only "phase one" of this development....

PPG Architectural Coatings distribution centre on DesBrisay Street in the MID Industrial Park West - current status:



About 2/3rds of the structural steel framing of this large building has now been erected.

[MonctonRad]

Spoon Sushi Express has opened on Lonsdale, just behind the Tim Horton's.

It's amazing how many sushi places have opened in the city in last few years.

[josh_cat_eyes]

They have begun renovations at the Super 8 to convert it to a Quality Inn. It looks like the renos have already been going on for a bit. I'm going to guess a January opening under the new brand.

[mylesmalley]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

Spoon Sushi Express has opened on Lonsdale, just behind the Tim Horton's.

It's amazing how many sushi places have opened in the city in last few years.

Tried it this afternoon. Very good! Londsdale is an odd location for a sushi restaurant but they're the only one for quite a ways in every direction so hopefully it'll work out for them.

[MonctonRad]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

There is a request for variance before the Moncton PAC to allow construction of two 16 unit apartment buildings off of Ivy Road adjacent to the Marsh Street trailer park on Mountain Road……

These apartment buildings are now under construction. I just noticed the activity today while driving down Mountain Road.

[MonctonRad]

from CBC:

Magnetic Hill Zoo hopes to extend opening season into winter
$84K funding boost will expand zoo's season
CBC News Posted: Dec 16, 2014 9:58 PM AT
Last Updated: Dec 16, 2014 9:58 PM AT

The Magnetic Hill Zoo is looking at extending its season from fall right into Christmas.

Thanks to an $84,000 boost in funding during Moncton's budget sessions, the zoo is also ready to add new exhibits.

The zoo received 142,000 visitors this year, and wants to increase that to 150,000 next year.

Manager Bruce Dougan says part of that strategy means opening past the fall.

"We've got a big facility here. A lot of the staff are here year round, so it’s great to take the opportunity to open the doors and to gain extra revenue in periods of time when you don't normally get revenue. This is a great opportunity for us to extend our season through November and December,” he said.

Christmas at the zoo

One event could be Wild Lights, a program that has worked at other zoos.

Cathy Simon, the visitor and education programs coordinator, said planning is underway to bring it to Moncton.

"You'll come to the zoo when it's dark and we will have Christmas lights everywhere you can imagine, decorating the trees, all of the buildings, that sort of thing,” she said.

“It will be beautiful, a nice walk in the winter, so bundle up because it is outside."

Dougan said the key to the zoo's success is keeping exhibits fresh and adding new attractions. Next year, a new section with space for the zoo’s cats will come on board.

"We're very excited to have an amur leopard here at the zoo. We're hoping to find a male to mate up with her, but at this time we just have the one because they're so rare."

The zoo is also building a guinea pig village for young children.

Dougan says right now the zoo is the number two paid attraction in the province and he's aiming for number one.

[MonctonRad]

While Moncton East can celebrate a new replacement school for Ecole Champlain and Dieppe can celebrate a new francophone 3-8 school because of overcrowding issues, all the government has committed to for the Northwest End is a "study" for overcrowding issues at Evergreen Park and Northrup Frye schools.

This is unacceptable. In the meantime, the Anglophone East School Board has made a pronouncement that the situation is so dire in the northwest end that an expansion to Northrup Frye may not be enough to address the issue, and that the real fix might be to bite the bullet and actually build another new anglophone school.

I suspect they might be right, but the issue then becomes "where would you build it"?

I think Evergreen Park and Northrup Frye cover the area south of Mountain Road pretty well and land acquisition for a new school might be problematic in this area anyway. I wonder therefore whether a new school shouldn't be built towards the north. In particular, I wonder about the Mountain Woods subdivision area. There is certainly land available out that way and it is a growing neighbourhood.

Thoughts anyone???

[mylesmalley]

I know this is an unpopular opinion with parents, but is it really that terrible to bus kids to some of the schools that are under-used or in flat-growth neighborhoods? Looking at you, Edith Cavelle, Bessborough, Hillcrest, Queen Elizabeth, Birchmount, Sunny Brae...

Worst case, it would get the kids used to the long commute they're going to have to put up with when they get shipped off to Irishtown High.

[MonctonRad]

I get what you're saying, and most people don't care about shipping their teenage sons and daughters across town to high school (no matter how absurd the location of the high school is - looking at you Claude Williams High), but the situation is a bit different when you are talking about elementary school aged children. I think neighbourhood schools make sense for younger kids.

Hopefully if some of the downtown condo developments get going, Edith Cavell will start filling up. It's a nice modern school. Most of the other schools you mentioned are older post war building that will need to be replaced in the next 10 years or so anyway. In general, the stock of a lot of the anglophone schools is pretty poor. Beaverbrook, Sunny Brae and Hillcrest in particular are nearing the end of their lifetime. They are a lot older that most francophone schools in the city and are smaller and lack most amenities that parents have come to expect.

[mylesmalley]

I guess my concern is that Northrup Frye and Evergreen are the Bessborough and Hillcrest schools of of the 2030s. The North End is seeing the explosive growth the West End saw during the baby boom with similar demographics. These schools are packed right now and will be for some time, but then as these kids age out, they won't be replaced by nearly as many new ones because some other neighborhood will be exploding. If you build now to meet the highest demand, you'll be hugely overbuilt when demand settles. Better to use what you've got now if it will still do the trick, within reason.

I agree kids walking to school is ideal, but being that close is a bit of a luxury too. Parents in rural areas don't get this option at all, afterall.