Centre Mall -> The Centre on Barton

[raisethehammer]

mark - my friends home was just built and they just moved in.
Perhaps you hadn't noticed but around the corner is another 10,000 homes being built at summit park. both sides of upper mt. albion, paramount/mud streets....it's been covered in homes since the highway was built.

what an exciting addition to hamilton's retail landscape RHVP is proving to be. How great to zip south to a sprawling mess of parking and ugly stucco boxes, OR get crazy and zip north to a sprawling mess of parking and ugly stucco boxes!! Wow, we sure know how to live it up in this town!

[flar]

I feel inclined to point out that the new Centre Mall has nothing to do with "what people want" or what's good for that part of the city, and more generally, that big box power centres replacing malls has nothing to do with what people want. It only has to do with what retailers want, and that is to maximize their profits. That is the only rationale for crap like the new Centre Mall. They want people in and out as fast as possible. Power centres are not made for comfort, only for convenience and to buy as much junk as possible as quickly as possible while still maintaining some of the synergy of malls by having several retailers share the parking lot.

In old fashioned malls they thought that maybe a climate controlled, comfortable atmosphere might be conducive to shoppers spending money, but in the end, it just ends up costing the retailer money to provide security for the building and clean up after all the people "loitering" and using the mall as a public space. People are addicted to shopping and will buy things anyways, so all that can be eliminated by having stand alone minimalistic warehouse style disposable buildings.


In short, the new Centre Mall is not better than what was there before for anyone except retailers.

[markbarbera]

Originally Posted by raisethehammer

mark - my friends home was just built and they just moved in.
Perhaps you hadn't noticed but around the corner is another 10,000 homes being built at summit park. both sides of upper mt. albion, paramount/mud streets....it's been covered in homes since the highway was built.

Okay, now I'm more confused. Summit Park is built at the southwest corner of Rymal and Fletcher's Road. It is impossible for oyur friend's backyard to back on to the RHVP if built there. I guess you were talking figuratively.

I am quite familiar with Summit Park. It is located just west of the site of the new factory being built that will recycle restaurant grease into biodiesel. RHVP is indeed attacting new residential, retail and industrial to this area.

[raisethehammer]

no, they BACK onto RHVP ramp. I said that Summit park is 'around the corner'...meaning, around the corner from their place and down Rymal a bit.
Sorry for the confusion, but it's quite plain to see if you drive up there. Not a single real job yet. Just sprawl homes and big box crap.

[markbarbera]

Playing devil's advocate here, but aren't construction jobs real jobs? and how many commercial businesses in the park up there would you qualify as worthwhile? As another forum participant pointed out, the RHVP has only been open to traffic for a year. Is it fair to be condemning it in this manner so early on in the game? Passing judgement on immediate growth over long term growth doesn't seem level-headed to me. Lets have adiscussion about RHVP ten years from now, ok?

At any rate, this discussion is supposed to be about Centre Mall yet it is constantly being hijacked by the RHVP straw man. I am happy to continue a discussion on RHVP in its proper forum.

[markbarbera]

Speaking of the Centre Mall, the old Zellers closes its doors for the final time on December 3. The new store will open the next day.

[fastcarsfreedom]

Have been away from this thread for a few days -- I'm not even going to bother jumping in any deeper than to the knees at this point.

Construction jobs are absolutely real -- and this era of shrinking new home starts--retail, commercial, infranstructure and industrial work is more crucial than ever. Retail and Foodservice jobs are real too--and play a role in the overall mosaic of the economy, even if they are often scoffed at it.

Secondly--as much as it is "the in thing" to talk about downtown malls killing downtown retail with their "inwardness" -- you only need to visit a city that didn't go that route (like the one I live near) to see that downtown retail died anyway--even with streetwalls intact and no inward facing mall. For certain malls went up in a number of cities to try to arrest this trend - and the malls only marginally helped - but to point to them as cause of the disappearance of retail ignores the fact that in a number of other cities (without downtown malls) the decline was just as severe. Hell, for a CMA population of over 300,000 we only have one major suburban mall -- the stores downtown still left.

I'm not passing judgement on the Centre until I see it in something closer to completed form. As much as I dont appreciate the "look" of the blank walls along Barton, I was under the impression from the beginning that this was Redcliffe's plan - I actual don't recall them ever saying they were building streetfront retail -- so this is exactly what I expected when they talked about having buildings along Barton...again, there was never a streetwall to restore - a fence around the Jockey Club and then a parking lot around the Centre.

Lastly, I thought of all you kids yesterday -- I found myself at a LEED Gold Certified...get ready for it...big box development. Fairlane Green in Allen Park, Michigan...I even took a photo of the medallion on one of the buildings just incase y'all didn't believe me.

[BCTed]

Originally Posted by fastcarsfreedom

Lastly, I thought of all you kids yesterday -- I found myself at a LEED Gold Certified...get ready for it...big box development. Fairlane Green in Allen Park, Michigan...I even took a photo of the medallion on one of the buildings just incase y'all didn't believe me.

I don't believe you.

[SteelTown]

Isn't that Zellers at Clappison's Corner LEED? Complete with windmills.

[flar]

Originally Posted by SteelTown

Isn't that Zellers at Clappison's Corner LEED? Complete with windmills.

Don't let the windmill fool you, I'm pretty sure it's not LEED, it looks pretty much like any other department store.

[raisethehammer]

fabulous. LEED buildings in the middle of nowhere surrounded by 10 acres of pavement only accessible by cars and paving over previously great farmland in order to construct. Sounds like a downright green fantasy-land.

[bornagainbiking]

Glass half empty, glass half full, at least it is a start, or a step in the right direction.
Like when you consider a diet, have a diet coke with your Big mac combo. At least the thought is there. haha
As for farm land you just might see a return/shift with the focus away from manufacturing.
Again so much negativity, remember it took steel, concrete, trades people and labour to put up that structure and some labour dude could pay his bills and feed his family, with the farmers food. maybe buy a truck or two.
A alderman once told me there is little money in residential taxes, sort of a balance for tax vs service. The money is in business.

[emge]

It is strange.. but given that part of LEED certification is location that's friendly to bikes and alternative transportation, they do need more points in the other areas when building out there. And yes, better than nothing -- It would be great if all new big box stores were LEED certified.

Its unbelievable how little things that are no-points-given prerequisites for LEED like collection of recyclables aren't always followed even in obvious places... (I know that's just a tiny part of environmental impact, but I'd be glad if all they're doing is recycling their hundreds of plastic hangers a day instead of throwing them out). I worked in an office building a few years back where no reycling was collected - 50-75 employees throwing out mounds of paperwork every single day. So when I shred and recycle my paperwork at home, it pales in comparison to stuff like that happening at hundreds of businesses... and that's before you even get to things that give you points toward certification in LEED retail.

[the dude]

the issue here is the design of the development. it doesn't matter what the site was like in its other incarnations. what matters is proper human-scaled, pedestrian friendly spaces. naturally, other cities have insisted that retail developments be built in this manner. not us. it probably didn't cross their ignorant little minds. they think the neighbourhood's garbage and that locals should be happy with anything. thanks for failing yet again.

[fastcarsfreedom]

Quote
fabulous. LEED buildings in the middle of nowhere surrounded by 10 acres of pavement only accessible by cars and paving over previously great farmland in order to construct. Sounds like a downright green fantasy-land.

I think it's fair to say that this comment shows obvious bias. Because--of course--all such developments look the same in your mind...which they are clearly not. The entire development is LEED certified--not just the individual buildings. Secondly, the vast majority of the open spaces in this particular development are naturalized green spaces--I believe it's in excess of 3/4 of the total land area (I will do a bit of research and confirm that). Lastly, it was not a greenfield development--but a brownfield one--replacing a landfill and a vacant VA Hospital.

[raisethehammer]

I was actually referring to the Zellers with windmills, but whatever...

[adam]

Originally Posted by fastcarsfreedom

Quote
fabulous. LEED buildings in the middle of nowhere surrounded by 10 acres of pavement only accessible by cars and paving over previously great farmland in order to construct. Sounds like a downright green fantasy-land.

I think it's fair to say that this comment shows obvious bias. Because--of course--all such developments look the same in your mind...which they are clearly not. The entire development is LEED certified--not just the individual buildings. Secondly, the vast majority of the open spaces in this particular development are naturalized green spaces--I believe it's in excess of 3/4 of the total land area (I will do a bit of research and confirm that). Lastly, it was not a greenfield development--but a brownfield one--replacing a landfill and a vacant VA Hospital.

You still need a car to get to any of the stores. And if you tried to brave the walk from one store to another you'd probably get hit by a car while traversing the huge sea of pavement (only teenagers walk in these big box developments because they don't have a car - and its looked down on). No trees or vegetation grows in a parking lot. Why can't we start going with parking garages? Why does every square inch of earth that a car touches have to be made dead by pavement? If we don't change this, imagine how much earth will be paved over in 10 years.... 20 years? Will we just pave over the entire planet?

[markbarbera]

Where is this 'pedestrians are going to be hit crossing the paking lot' idea coming from?!? This is really complete nonsense.

First off, I can't think of the last time, indeed any time at all in this city's history where a pedestrian has been struck while crossing a parking lot of a mall, big box or otherwise. If it has occurred I can guarantee it makes up a tiny fraction of all pedestrian accidents on record. Furthermore, given the average speed of a car in a parking lot is 20kmh, any hypothetical pedestrian accident is not going to produce life-threatening injuries. The 'unsafe pedestrian' is a weak argument against this mall at best.

So unless any of you spouting off such baseless conjecture about potential pedestrian safety can support this suggestion with hard statistics supporting the claim, to belabour the fiction is just silliness.

And once again, take a look at the plans before making nonsense statements about 'no pedestrian access'. Pedestrians have been taken into consideration in this redevelopment, perhaps not in the context you anticipated, but in a way not seen in any other development of its kind in the area. Like it or not, the fact remains that pedestrian walkways are in relative abundance here. All the buildings lining Barton Street have pedestrian walkways running along the storefronts and linking directly to the public sidewalk along Barton Street. Of the 23 buildings under construction, 12 have direct pedestrian access to them without a pedestrian ever having to set one foot on paved parking. All the buildings have pedestrian walkways along their storefronts and there are clearly marked walkways connecting all the buildings.

It is obvious some of you absolutely hate the design of the redevelopment. But let's be honest with the facts and a little less melodramatic with baseless conjecture about pedestrian safety concerns at this site.

[raisethehammer]

mark - find me a mall anywhere in hamilton that doesn't have walkways leading to the property from the public sidewalks??
if that's considered great pedestrian access it's no wonder this city is in the shape it's in. the bar has been set so low it's flush with the pavement.

[markbarbera]

Limeridge Mall has no direct pedestrian access to it, neither did Centre Mall in its previous incarnation. Eastgate has very limited pedestrian access. Eastgate and Lime Ridge Malls are islands in a sea of parking, as was Centre Mall. The redevelopment is an improvement for pedestrian access. Not perfect, but definitely a step up.