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Ivanhoe Cambridge plans super-regional retail-entertainment center

Ivanhoe Cambridge says it plans to build a super-regional retail and entertainment center in Rocky View, Alberta.
The Montréal-based REIT is still working out details, including the name and the merchandise mix, says John Scott, vice president of development. The initial proposals call for 1.4 million square feet of retail, restaurant and entertainment space, with 12 to 15 anchor tenants, each ranging from 20,000 to 150,000 square feet.

What makes this announcement especially noteworthy is that, with the exception of Toronto's Vaughan Mills, which Ivanhoe Cambridge and The Mills Corp. opened in 2004, there have been no regional malls, let alone super-regionals, rolled out in Canada since the early 1990s.

Plans call for a ground-breaking this summer and an opening in the fall of 2007, says Scott. Although these plans could change, Ivanhoe Cambridge is intent on creating a destination project in Rocky View, he says.

“We really are going to look at combining the best attributes of an enclosed regional shopping center, a power center, an outlet mall and an entertainment center,” said Scott.

Located just north of Calgary, Rocky View is a fast-growing bedroom community of 50,000, but it has very little retail outside of local service-oriented stores, says Scott. There is “much less in terms of destination retail, such as we are proposing.”

Ivanhoe Cambridge is coordinating its development schedule so that the center opens at the same time as a horserace track being planned nearby. The track is a project of the United Horsemen of Alberta, which promotes equestrian events in the province. It will go up on an adjacent 150-acre site and will contain dining rooms and a simulcasting area. According to published reports, the project is expected to cost about C$78 million ($66.6 million) and will feature a Las Vegas–style casino with about 5,000 slot machines.

“That will dovetail quite nicely with portions of the shopping center,” said Scott. “One of the really unique aspects of this is it will be associated with one of two class-A horseracing facilities in Alberta.”