2 new power centres for Hamilton!!!!
 

Mady Development Corp. is behind plans to build an $85-million power centre in Stoney Creek. Wal-Mart has signed on as the anchor tenant for the project, to be located on a 17-hectare site on the southwest corner of the QEW and Fifty Road.
Wal-Mart also wants to relocate its existing store at Eastgate Square to a $100-million power centre planned for the corner of Centennial Parkway North and South Service Road. The 12-hectare site, a former scrapyard and the current location of Fox 40 International, was bought by power centre developer SmartCentres for $23.8 million last year. Both stores would resemble Wal-Mart’s Ancaster location, with a full complement of groceries including meats, fruits, vegetables and baked goods, said Wal-Mart spokesperson Kevin Groh.

Sweet!

Well considering neither of which are accessible by bus or foot, then I will never visit either one. Too bad.

Supercentres no easy sell at city hall

Naomi Powell
The Hamilton Spectator
(Dec 4, 2007)

Wal-Mart is gearing up for a major expansion in Hamilton, with two new superstores planned for the city's eastern end.

Plans for the mega-stores are on hold, however, due to planning issues at city hall.

"We are clearly frustrated," said Hal Kersey, vice-president of planning and development for Mady Development Corp. "We're waiting for the municipality. We can't move ahead without their approvals."

Mady Development is behind plans to build an $85-million power centre in Stoney Creek. Wal-Mart has signed on as the anchor tenant for the project, to be located on a 17-hectare site on the southwest corner of the QEW and Fifty Road.

Wal-Mart also wants to relocate its existing store at Eastgate Square to a $100-million power centre planned for the corner of Centennial Parkway North and South Service Road. The 12-hectare site, a former scrapyard and the current location of Fox 40 International, was bought by power centre developer SmartCentres for $23.8 million last year.

Both stores would resemble Wal-Mart's Ancaster location, with a full complement of groceries including meats, fruits, vegetables and baked goods, said Wal-Mart spokesperson Kevin Groh.

Neither development will go ahead, however, until the city decides what should happen to the land.

Both developers have asked city hall to rezone their sites to allow major retailers such as Wal-Mart. But before that can happen, the city must complete a review of its industrial or "employment" land, said Peter De Iulio, senior project manager in the city's planning department.

The study -- mandated by the province's Places to Grow legislation --has been tabled by city hall pending an analysis of the city's brownfield sites (idle industrial lands that require environmental remediation to redevelop). The completed report will analyze each parcel of land and determine whether there is enough available to allow the land to host shopping centres instead.

SmartCentres "is patiently awaiting" the outcome of the review, said Allan Scully, vice-president of development.

His firm plans to spend several million dollars cleaning up the former scrapyard -- once the property of Chester and Morris Waxman -- on the Centennial Parkway North and South Service Road site. The remaining industrial property will be vacated by Fox 40 International and Fluke Transport by May 1.

"I'm hopeful (the review) will be completed by early spring," he said. "For the time being, we are in limbo."

Kersey said the review shouldn't apply to his application because it was filed in 2005, a year before Places to Grow came into effect.

"Any provincial legislation to do with employment lands shouldn't apply to us," he said.

Though Places to Grow may not apply to Mady because of the date of its application, the power centre proposal must still undergo a standard planning review, said Paul Mallard, director of planning for the city.

"These things take time," he said.

The Stoney Creek site -- bought for $9.5 million by Mady and partner Penady (Stoney Creek) Ltd. -- is designated as a business park, which allows big-box stores, but only ones that service or support industrial customers.

Kersey takes issue with the rule because it excludes major retailers, including grocery and department stores.

To accommodate Wal-Mart and other potential tenants, Mady has asked the city to amend the designation to allow these businesses.

The comprehensive review of employment land should be complete early next year.

It will then go to city council for approval.

yahoo!! Maybe we can put up signs on the QEW that say "Welcome to Walmartville".

Oh wait. We won't need to. The mega store at our major QEW exits will do that for us.

Yep....Hamilton is in dire need of some industrial lands. We built a grand total of zero industrial projects along the Linc...ditto for 403 extension. so far over 10,000 homes are being constructed atop the Red Hill, but zero industry.
So, here's an idea - why don't we take 2 huge pieces of industrial land on exit ramps of one of the busiest highways in Canada, less than an hour from the US border and convert them to more box stores....after all, Hamilton really has a shortage of box stores.

unbelievable....

Blahh!

Inexcusable! :hell:

:yuck:

I can see Wal-Mart going to QEW/Centennial Parkway. Centenial Parkway is all mostly retail, big boxes, and car dealerships so it fits in with everything else in the area. The current land is an eyesore and requires massive brownfield cleanup.

This is an area I predict will have a future GO station for the East End. If VIA had it's way then it would have it's Hamilton station there as well.

I never like the argument that "its currently an eyesore so...." yes, you're right. it is an eyesore.
But it is absolute prime industrial land.
both of these interchanges should look like the major interchanges in Halton or Peel with industrial buildings, offices etc.....

heck, we're even building our own right now in between these 2 sites:

http://thbp.ca/

this is why they tell us we need all these bloody highways. And we all know that Hamilton needs more industrial development which brings great taxes, AND decent jobs. We're going to be like a mini-USA with everyone working at Walmart unless you're lucky enough to get a job in T.O.

this is absolutely inexcusable.

I want to hear from all the pro-red hill highway people too. don't sit in silence on this one.
this has been your number 1 arguement for building that road, and others in the area - new industry, new jobs, new taxes etc..... you should be more outraged than any of us.

I agree 100%, rth.
it SHOULD be for an office tower... altho it would be a lot more welcome downtown.

Just b/c it's zoned "industrial" doesn't mean it has to be another scrapyard/steelmill/conola oil plant (which gives Hamilton it's distinctive "smell")...

I have a better option for this site... windmills. Centennial is very windy, the winds come off the lake. Why not optimize the free land (withouth having to affect Confederation Park's natural beauty) and build a couple sustainable energy mills? Hello!? Why is this city SO against/afraid of being Progressive???

Sure it would cost money to build, but it will also MAKE (or save) money in the long run as we could sell the energy or use it for our own city and not have to buy so much off Niagara, etc.

PLUS it'll alleviate the eyesore it is today.

Why is there so little industrial development in Hamilton? I hope your city council isn't satisfied with the city becoming just another bedroom community of Toronto. Even the so-called "bedroom community" of Cambridge is busy developing industrial and office-commercial like there's no tomorrow. And oh yeah...SCREW WAL-MART! :P (I feel more like a planning student every time I say it)

b/c they're all so scared of being progressive and investing money they "don't have" to service lands...
So they roll over onto their backs and let the housing/walmart developers pay for everything.

However, in the case of Clappison's Corner (Hwys 5&6 in Waterdown), the city actually paid to have Walmart's land serviced for them. Disgusting.

Because your land is green land, which is what industrial companies perfer, our land is former industrial sites that requires brownfield cleanup.

To have green land Hamilton would need to expand it's urban boundary and well others aren't too fond of that idea especially creating industrial land around the airport.

It doesn't get any 'greener' than QEW and Fifty Road.
It doesn't get any 'greener' than Glanbrook Industrial Park (still empty after 25 years)
It doesn't get any 'greener' than all the land on top of Red Hill (10,000 homes, tons of big boxes and NOT A SINGLE industrial plant)
It doesn't get any 'greener' than the farmland along Hwy 2/403 (more boxes and homes)

The list goes on and on. There has been a TON of empty 'greenfield' land opened up in Hamilton in the past several years.
Industry continues to pass us by for many other reasons...image, taxes, image, image, city hall, image, city hall, city hall etc......

They are a bunch of morons trying to run a city.
And for the record, the homebuilders and box builders don't even come close to covering the cost of servicing land. Existing urban taxpayers do.
If big box development and suburban residential sprawl were able to MAKE money for the city, Hamilton would be doing great.
The fact is, we are spiraling further and further into debt BECAUSE we continue to subsidize sprawl and box development. Doing more of a bad thing will only bring more bad results. Council knows that, yet doesn't care.
They'll be retired living the high life off taxpayer money by the time the province has to come in and take over a bankrupt city with mini-old faithfuls shooting up into the sky all over town.

Never mind a huge fountain in the harbour. Someday (and fairly soon) you'll be able to stand atop the brow and see dozens of them shooting up from all over the city.
But don't worry. We've always got another few hundred thousand bucks for the next homebuilder that shows up.

No industrial company wants QEW and Fifty Road, in fact home builders wanted to build homes instead but the city rejected and still waiting for an industrial company
Both Glanbrook and top of Red Hill which is part of Glanbrook is currently getting serviced right now thanks to Federal and Provincial funding help

The Centenial Parkway location seems like it is borderline okay. They are cleaning up a contaminated brownfield site which in its current state does not have high potential for redevelopment as a business park. The project is just a relocation from a mall so does not increase big box capacity in that area in a completely unhealthy way.

The fifty road location is less than ideal. That site has prime potential for future industrial business park development and converting it to big box retail will only open up the area for more suburban development. With Walmart often comes all the other 'players'. ie. sprawling low density residential, fast food, and gas stations.

Something the city could do to be somewhat progressive is offer to buy the land off the developers in exchange for city owned brownfield or greyfield land close to downtown and offer tax incentives for redevelopment. The city could look at this as an investment since they will not need to build infrastructure to service the Walmart and will increase the capacity of retail in an underserviced area.

In the future if there is demand develop the fifty road site as an industrial park.

I'm sorry Steeltown...I'm not meaning to argue with you at all, but I just have a hard time with these arguements from the city.
They always say "industrial builders don't want this or that".
Yet they don't seem to mind in London or Waterloo or Toronto or Ottawa.
Industrial developers have gone crazy snapping up pieces of land identical to QEW and Fifty Rd all along the QEW.
Look at the huge building Paelleta built at QEW and ??(somewhere in burlington, not sure of the exit).
Same in Oakville and the 403 through Oakville.
More office buildings are being built right now in St Catharines at QEW as you come into town.
403/QEW interchange in Burlington, same thing.

I don't buy the city's garbage anymore. They've always got an excuse to allow more homes or box stores and NO real investment or REAL taxes to be generated for our dying city.

I'm no fan of the highway-style development model, yet I realize if we're going to have these highways built, let's at least use them properly.
We didn't with Linc, 403 Extension, we aren't with Red Hill and now we're even wasting the QEW - possibly the easiest highway in Canada to make money off of and we might even find a way to screw that up.

Not meaning to rant, but this is crazy. I hate the debt we're racking up in order to build all these highways. I at least want to see well-paying jobs and industrial development be the result.
We've been lied to for decades and told that "this next highway will be the one".
The lie continues and so does the massive debt load.

I believe it was just recently that Hamilton's business tax finally began to be competitive compared to the GTA and Southwestern Ontario - that's why Maple Leaf wanted to relocate to Hamilton (didn't happen). Another problem is Hamilton spends less on the Economic Department compared to any other city in Southern Ontario, not sure about the Niagara Region. Mayor Fred has been trying really hard to change that, increase the Economic department budget, but it's been difficult. I think the latest news is that Hamilton and the Province might work together in funding some sort of economic department to recruit new businesses and more brownfield funding from the province.

I forget where I heard that, but I believe it's true.

I thought the City wanted to build a "Welcome to Hamilton" Centre at this location?
Wow... this (big box) site would fit rather conveniently w/ the Welcome Centre & VIA Station, eh? Looks like Valeri will win afterall.

Why not just build a giant sign there: "This Way to Centre Mall"! hahaha ya right. Centre Mall doesn't allow for sprawl! Only infil... and who in their right mind on council would support infil??

If I had to take a bet I would say the city will approve Centennial Parkway/QEW and deny Fifty Road/QEW. If the city can deny home builders for Fifty Road then they can deny Wal-Mart.

I bet the city will use the Wal-Mart location at Centennial as a major bus terminal. If there's ever a future East End GO Station it would be at this site. VIA would have a hard on if they could get this site, right next to QEW and far enough from Aldershot.