DeMalling the GTA and Golden Horseshoe

[miketoronto]

What do you guys think of demalling Southern Ontario?

There is no doubt that suburban malls have caused much urban decay in cities like Hamilton, St Catharines, Niagara Falls, etc.

Cities like Hamilton spend millions trying to prop up downtown and commercial corridors. What if that money was spent to buy out the suburban malls and shut them down?

Just think of it.

For example

HAMILTON
Demalling the city. Eastgate Square, Centre Mall, The Meadowlands, and Limeridge Mall would all be shut down, and retail would not be allowed in the suburban format within the entire City limits(which is pretty large now).
If other cities followed suit, like St Catharines, Burlington, etc.
There would be a whole area where none of these malls could further ruin our cities??


In Toronto we could also do this.
Take out Scarborough Town Centre, Yorkdale, Sherway, Square One, Markville Mall, Pickering Town Centre etc.
We could spark new life into downtown Toronto and all the little suburban downtown districts.

Would be interesting to see what would happen if we really did this.

I know we could never do this, but just think.

[WhipperSnapper]

there is a reason malls were incorporated into masterplans and subsequently built where they are


most malls around the GTA are within areas of the highest concentrations of housing while their quaint historical downtowns elsewhere are relatively low - this ideallic plan of yours which would force people to commute even longer distances for milk makes little sense in reality

suburbs are suburbs - there is no quick fix to make them urban

[DC83]

The fact that retailers IN malls do way more business / make way more money than those Street Facing stores alone would prove that this is an impossibility. Which is unfortunate.

I like the idea, however, of turning current malls into shopping "villages" like they have started in the States, and more recently up here (ie.: new Centre Mall in Hamilton).

Scarlem Town Centre could REALLY use a Village setting makeover - but that will NEVER happen.

[LordMandeep]

Square one is going to have like 20 buildings around it. Yorkdale is a gateway to downtown... So really malls actually encourage development around them.

[SteelTown]

I wouldn't start demalling as you call it but I would start enforcing better bylaws to ban drive thru and stand alone boxes. Basically ban big boxes. Though I don't have a problem if these big boxes where together with parking at the back. All suburban malls should have a transit station and created into a village like atmosphere.

I'm hoping with the redevelopment of Centre Mall it'll create a blueprint for future malls, village type.

Every mall other than Jackson Square has caused housing sprawl. It started with Centre Mall creating post war sprawl which is now considered urban. Eastgate created sprawl throughout the 70's. Then the grand daddy of em all Limeridge Mall with high retail stores caused huge sprawl, central Hamilton Mountain is the most populated area of Hamilton. Now we got Meadowlands and that is sprawling close to a million "McMansion". Two more power centres are coming Heritage Green and Clappison’s Corners, I wonder what the outcome of those power centres will be, hmmmmmm.

[icescraper]

[QUOTE=SteelTown]I wouldn't start demalling as you call it but I would start enforcing better bylaws to ban drive thru and stand alone boxes. Basically ban big boxes. Though I don't have a problem if these big boxes where together with parking at the back. All suburban malls should have a transit station and created into a village like atmosphere.QUOTE]

- I couldn't agree more. Big boxes and drive throughs do not give anything to the public except bleached ease and convinience. Unfortunately we've become a society addicted to it. I still walk into Tim Hortons - ice

[BlackRedGold]

Originally Posted by SteelTown

I'm hoping with the redevelopment of Centre Mall it'll create a blueprint for future malls, village type.

In case you hadn't noticed, traditional malls are no longer built. It's been over a decade since one has been built in Ontario.

[SteelTown]

Yea I’m aware of that fact.

But the redevelopment plans for Centre Mall, cost $100 million, calls for a “hybrid” of traditional and stand alone boxes. Traditional retail facing along the street (Barton St) with parking at the back with some stand alone boxes, the traditional retail mall section will help at least block the image of parking lots and stand alone boxes.

This to me is a lot better then the big boxes that popping all over suburbs, hopefully this idea will catch on in future shopping centre designs.

[MolsonExport]

In my view, malls are not as much of a problem as are 'Power Centres' (big boxes, each surrounded by acres of parking...where you have to drive your car 5 or 6 times to shop). And every power centre looks exactly the same as the next one.

[shreddog]

Originally Posted by BlackRedGold

In case you hadn't noticed, traditional malls are no longer built. It's been over a decade since one has been built in Ontario.

Not sure of your definition of a traditional mall, but would you not consider Vaughn Mills to fall under that category?

[BlackRedGold]

Originally Posted by shreddog

Not sure of your definition of a traditional mall, but would you not consider Vaughn Mills to fall under that category?

Nope, it's an outlet mall. A very large outlet mall, but an outlet mall none the less. Hence, my use of the word traditional since I'm well aware of Vaughan Mills.

[LordMandeep]

Vaughn mills is a mall...

[zerokarma]

I'd rather go to malls then go from big box store to the next big box store.

[DC83]

Know what kills me??
People who go to Big Box plazas (ie.: Meadowlands in Ancaster) and go from one store to the next (sometimes 1 or 2 "stores" (aka boxes) down in their CAR!!!

[FALLSVIEW]

Originally Posted by DC83

Know what kills me??
People who go to Big Box plazas (ie.: Meadowlands in Ancaster) and go from one store to the next (sometimes 1 or 2 "stores" (aka boxes) down in their CAR!!!

That's the problem! Don't just blame these developers who see an opportunity to make a boat load of money, where a farmer use to plant his crop. Blame these lazy ass people who hop in their overpriced, overfueled SUV's, and drive from one side of the parking lot to the other for a new duvet cover! I personally hate shopping in 95% of any larger downtown I come across, because it has become a haven for those looking to make a quick buck with a switchblade. This is exactly why Niagara Falls is trying to re-develop it's Downtown!

Developer Wants To Reverse the Flow In Tiny Niagara Falls
Plan Would Create Old-Style Downtown

By David Segal
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, November 20, 2006; Page A03

NIAGARA FALLS, Ontario — Walk 20 minutes due north of the wax museums and honeymoon motels at the tacky core of this perennial tourist stop and you will find the eight-block stretch that locals here call downtown. It looks like any other main street in a death spiral: dozens of empty storefronts, plenty of cheap rental apartments and a few hold-out businesses limping from month to month.

But if all goes as planned, these benighted blocks will soon be the scene of a nervy experiment in urban revival. The plan is to close most of the downtown, throw a tarp over the buildings and spend more than $200 million on renovations. A year or so later, the place would reopen, this time hopefully with marquee retailers and spiffy residences, in a setting that might look like a Norman Rockwell painting come to life.

[matt602]

That sounds kind of insane to be honest. I'd be willing to bet it'll just be an expansion of the tourist trap, a second Clifton Hill.

You can't revitalize a downtown by closing it and renovating everything. It's a delicate process that takes years.

[SteelTown]

Well here's some more lovely news....more power centres in Hamilton

Developer eyes QEW power centre
By Naomi Powell
The Hamilton Spectator
(Nov 29, 2006)

One of Canada's biggest power centre developers has snapped up more than 12 hectares of land in Hamilton.

The $23.8-million purchase by SmartCentres includes six hectares of brownfields the company has pledged to clean up.

SmartCentres has developed 170 power centres across Canada, most anchored by Wal-Mart stores. It also develops office and industrial space.

Although no final plans have been made to build a power centre on the site, SmartCentres' Flavio Volpe noted that "in a location like that, it's one of the things we are seriously considering."

[dougtheengineer]

Malls >> power centers. I can't stand those places, especially their parking lots. Malls are not the only reason downtowns are dead, so removing malls is not the answer.

[FALLSVIEW]

Here is another Power Centre proposal off the QEW in St. Catharines

Wal-Mart: The Next Generation coming soon ... maybe

Doug Herod

Friday, November 24, 2006 - 09:00

Herod's Column - Get ready, east St. Catharines.

Big-box bliss is in your future.

As expected, a developer has formally submitted plans to rezone former Ferranti-Packard property to make way for a new power retail centre, bordered by Bunting Road, Dieppe Road and Neilson Avenue,

The anchor tenant would be a huge, next-generation Wal-Mart store (19,350 square metres) with a significant grocery component (4,050 square metres).

By comparison, the existing Wal-Mart store at the nearby Lincoln Mall is 14,500 square metres and the Pen Centre Zehrs grocery store is 5,400 square metres.

In addition to demolishing the old Ferranti-Packard factory, the landscape-altering proposal involves tearing down NG Cash and Carry and TST Overland Express, both of which front on Bunting Road.

The development also calls for eight other new mini- to mid-sized box stores on the 31.8-acre (12.8-hectare) property. The existing Staples store and small adjacent plaza on site will remain. There will be parking space for more than 1,700 cars.

Now before people start polishing up their resumes for Wal-Mart greeter jobs or investing in asphalt, it should be noted St. Catharines East Developments Inc. has some regulatory hurdles to jump before its plans can be realized.

(St. Catharines East Developments Inc. is an arm of Smart!Centres, formerly First Pro Shopping Centres, the gang that brought us the Louth Power Centre on Fourth Avenue.)

First and foremost for the developers is convincing St. Catharines city council to rezone the land in question from industrial to commercial.

The public meeting to deal with the rezoning isn't expected until some time next spring.

However, there is a preliminary public information session set for Jan. 31.

Smart!Centres, which pines for the visibility a QEW service road offers, had sounded out city planners earlier this year about its proposal, and received a guarded response.

Concern was expressed by planners about the city giving up potentially prime industrial land along the QEW, the pressure for change such a huge commercial development might have on other nearby industrial properties and whether it would lead to an oversupply of retail space in the immediate area as well as the rest of the city.

The developer was asked to commission studies that would address these points as well as traffic and servicing questions.

The city only received the reports earlier this month and is still working through them.

However, to no one's surprise, the developer-funded studies support the re-zoning application, arguing there's room for more retail space in the city.

The project would result in the expansion and modernization of the existing Lincoln Mall commercial node, and could help persuade the owners of the eyesore known as the Adelstein scrapyard on Welland Avenue to relocate, the developer's consultants say.

Don't worry about the impact on the downtown, either, they add.

The proposed east St. Catharines development and downtown stores appeal to different consumers.

They also suggest the city is backing a loser if it continues to market the site for renewed industrial activity. There are plenty of more attractive industrial properties elsewhere in Niagara. The city is better off promoting its available industrial land in west St. Catharines.

And the city can't afford to rest on its laurels as the retail and commercial service hub of Niagara.

"In the face of increasing competition within Niagara region arising from proposals in Niagara Falls and elsewhere, it is important that St. Catharines encourage the upgrading and modernization of commercial facilities within the municipality," reads a report from a Markham-based retail consultant.

Proposed Location Link: Google Earth

[matt602]

Population grows = build a huge walmart?

Apparently that's the city building equation these days. Sickens me to be honest.