Retail News

[bornagainbiking]

This is supposed to be about retail and as usual it goes off on a tangent. What comes first the chicken or the egg?
Well, If you put in the retail and no customers then the business will not survive.
So we need to provide a transportation hub and plenty of affordable high quality housing. Condos and renovated existing houses (brownstones near Go Station) and these older solid homes will stand the test of time. So if they get filled then people need to eat and work on their homes. (Canadian Tire, Home hardware, Sobeys or a independent Foodland)
I can't for the life of me see a casino. We need permanent residents. This is Hamilton not vegas.
Want to gamble go to Brantford, Flamborough or Niagara. We want this to be a family destination and visit our bay.
Talk about waste we have a $80 million reno on the court house that is used from 9-5. Maybe if we have high end condos the lawyers will buy and walk to work.
So sorry Mark a casino is a hard sell and may be a waste of your time. I opt for anything that gets people living downtown.
They are building a new primary school at Charleton and Walnut. Kids means families.
Hey.
I heard a great one yesterday on CHML.
We need an arena for the upcoming games. Sooooooooooooooo
bull doze City Hall and put it there at the Bus Hub, Go station and plenty of hotels. have giant tailgate parties on the upper deck at Jackson Sq.
Plenty of parking already for the M-F crowd. The underground at JS and Hamilton place, Farmers market. Sure beat some guys lawn on Balsam.
Just think a multi sports entertainment square (Copps, Hamilton place, CFL Hall of Fame). Hockey and football together.
Also a quick and easy exit off the 403.
City Hall to stay in City Centre and City Hall as a Stadium.
Maybe when we get back on track build a City Hall on some Brown field near the Waterfront.

[flar]

One thing that keeps coming up that we've been through over and over is that we need people living downtown...well we have people living downtown. There are something like 60,000 people living within a 10 minute walk of Jackson Square.

[Millstone]

Originally Posted by FairHamilton

Mac has a downtown campus? I won't claim to be all that knowledgeable on what goes on in that building, but realcity posted the below a few pages back,



Is that truly the case?

Yeah I've taken courses there, it's a bit of a dead building that is used for con-ed.

[adam]

The fact that James St N is a burgeoning arts district now is a telltale sign that the area is on its way up. Look at any city that's recovered from a slump and the arts community almost always gets there first. They tend to be more sensitive to areas with potential.

I've been reading about gentrification and several sources say that big industry has to shut down before real gentrification happens. Well, Dofasco and Stelco are severely cutting back already. The next 5 years in our city should be really interesting. Added to that, hard economic times are historically when great buildings are constructed.

[highwater]

Hard economic times are also when great buildings get preserved.

[SteelTown]

Ferguson/Barton retail development.......

Environmental Remediation and Site Enhancement (ERASE) Redevelopment Grant Application was submitted by 1201159 Ontario Limited for Redevelopment of property at 201 Robert Street and 194-200 Barton Street East, Hamilton, ON (Appendix A to Report PED09040). The application qualifies for an ERASE Redevelopment Grant as a result of required environmental site remediation, demolition and on-site infrastructure upgrades in order to permit construction of four commercial buildings, two of approximately 3,000 square feet fronting Barton Street East, one including vehicular drive thru, one commercial building of approximately 15,000 square feet and another of approximately 40,000 square feet in addition to a masonry and decorative aluminium screen-wall and landscaping features.

The Grant application is for $1,908,381.04 in eligible environmental site remediation, demolition and infrastructure upgrade costs. Estimated project construction costs are $6,500,000. It is estimated that the proposed development will increase the market value assessment (MVA) on the site from its current $699,000 to approximately $3,050,000. This will increase total annual property taxes generated by this property.

http://www.myhamilton.ca/NR/rdonlyre...03PED09040.pdf

[flar]

So I thought drive-thrus were not allowed in that part of the city? Also, what happened to that thing about new buildings being at least 2 storeys?

[SteelTown]

OMB ruled in favour of the retail development to allow drive thru. The city had banned it from Setting Sail but the OMB allowed certain areas in Setting Sail to have drive thru.

Also you'll notice no residential development will be allowed on this site, apparently it's too contaminated that only commercial will be accepted.

[adam]

What was there before that made it so contaminated? The General Hospital is right beside it.

[SteelTown]

History

The following site history was identified. The subject property is located at the southeast corner of Ferguson Avenue North and Barton Street East. 201 Robert Street is occupied by a two-storey multi-tenant industrial building. Tenants previously occupying the building included Hotz, CMW Metal, Langdon Mechanical Systems and Services, Hamilton Memorials, Event BBQ Catering Inc., CR Landscape and So Low Sales. 194-200 Barton Street East is a vacant parcel of land which was formerly a railyard. Sections of the old rail line are still present on the eastern side of the parcel. The building at 201 Robert Street will be demolished and made into parking for the proposed commercial development.

Based on the findings of several site inspections and review of previous environmental reports, several areas of known and suspected environmental concern were identified on the site from the property’s previous uses.

A Phase II ESA for the property at 201 Robert Street and 194-200 Barton Street East was conducted on the property by Decommissioning Consulting Services Limited (DCS) in August 2005 followed by a Supplemental Phase II ESA in May of 2006 and a revised Risk Assessment (RA) in January 2007. The total site area is 5.5 acres where the contaminants are identified in various sections on the property. Based on the subsurface investigation and test results, along with historical data found in the former reports prepared also by Trow Associates, Anderson GeoLogic Limited and Dillon Consulting Limited, the RA prepared by DCS indicates that soil contamination encountered at the subject property comprises metals, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) associated with coal and coal residues, inorganic parameters, such as electrical conductivity (EC) and sodium absorption ratio (SAR), and petroleum hydrocarbons (PHC) associated with fuel oils and lubricants. There is also an area of soil and groundwater contamination associated with a former diesel fuel underground storage tank (UST) located on the Robert Street portion of the site. DCS submitted an original Risk Assessment to the Ministry of the Environment (MOE) in August of 2006. After addressing issues arising in the first submission, DCS submitted a revised Risk Assessment for review by the MOE Standards Development Branch in January 2007. After review of the revised Risk Assessment, the Director posted a Certificate of Property Use (CPU) on the Environmental Registry on May 16, 2008 that incorporates risk management measures as part of the Risk Assessment for the site and also outlines additional risk management measures and restrictions to land use on the subject property. As such, the owner of the property at 201 Robert Street and 194-200 Barton Street East requisitioned a detailed work program for the clean-up of the property from A.J. Clarke and Associates Ltd. that itemized clean-up activities including the risk management measures, demolition clearing and stripping topsoil, infrastructure upgrades, removal of 500 mm of fill and grading of site, construction of asphalt pavement and base pads, landscaping and environmental monitoring. The risk management measures identified in the RA and CPU will be done in order to permit a Record of Site Condition (RSC) for the subject property.

[flar]

Old photos and maps show a large rail yard and industry along Ferguson. If you look at google maps satellite view today you can see a curved area between Wellington and Ferguson where the tracks used to branch off. The railroad ran right on Ferguson through downtown. You may have heard of the famous collisoin between a freight train and a streetcar near King St., right about where the recreation of Ferguson Station is now.

[SteelTown]

Imagine if Stelco and Dofasco goes down and we won't be able to convert the land to residential. Massive land for parks and commercial?

[emge]

It would be a shame not to put a few condo towers up near the waterfront in the far-off, distant future when those two are no longer around. Can you imagine the terraced towers that could look out onto the bay in a couple decades? With proper commercial development between them and the remaining, aint-gonna-go-anywhere industrial?

And I'm sure for that much occupancy on such a small parcel of land, with very little ground-level use itself beyond courtyards and underground parking, remediation and zoning could be worked out - whatever the cost.

It's likely not analogous, but there is some industrial land currently being re-purposed for condos along the T.O. waterfront now that the rest of the waterfront is filled in... I'm sure they had to work around a lot there too, if not of the exact same level/type of contaminants and zoning issues.

[flar]

Brownfield sites are converted to residential all the time.

In this case it's probably just an excuse or lack of will. It can be done, but it can be expensive. The Toronto waterfront is a good example, it is actually similar to Hamilton's in that the land was built up out into the lake and hosted railyards and industry until fairly recently.

[SteelTown]

The subject lands are designated as “Central Policy Area” and “Special Policy Area 3” within the City of Hamilton Official Plan, and as “Mixed Use” within the Council approved Setting Sail Secondary Plan. The subject lands were rezoned in 2007 through By-law 07-026 to permit a variety of commercial and residential uses. The zoning was further modified in 2008 through By-law 08-021 to add a Drive-Through Facility as a permitted use. The lands that are subject to this grant are zoned “H” – ‘H’ (Community Shopping and Commercial, etc. – Holding) District, Modified. The lands were placed in a Holding provision to prohibit the development of any sensitive land uses (i.e. residential, institutional, and day nursery uses) on the site until such time that a Record of Site Condition (RSC) has been submitted to the Ministry of Environment (MOE) verifying that the lands have been cleaned up to a standard to permit such uses. As mentioned previously in this report, the MOE has reviewed a Risk Assessment for this property and a Certificate of Property Use (CPU) has been posted on the Environmental Registry. This CPU states that the lands may not be used for residential, institutional or parkland uses. Therefore, although the zoning on the property does permit some residential uses, the CPU will restrict any future development to commercial uses only. According to information provided by the applicant, only commercial uses are being proposed on the property, in keeping with the CPU. The applicant must still file an RSC with the MOE prior to the Holding provision being removed from the lands.

[flar]

^^I know that's official line, but I learned a long time ago to distrust what these agencies say. They are all subject to manipulation of various sorts.

In the early 90s I worked for the MOE. One day I watched a Ministry employee pick up a hose and drain raw sewage into a channel that flowed directly into a river. When the readings came back off the charts, the lab said it was a measurement error. I was right there and told them that I saw raw sewage dumped into the river. They said it was a measurement error.

Who knows, if this land was on the Toronto waterfront, there could have been a measurement error.

[adam]

All it will take is a few towers visible from the QEW and Hamilton's image will change awfully quick. Maybe within 15 years they will be built (after Randall Reff cleanup)? It would be the most beautiful waterfront property in the golden horseshoe.

[SteelTown]

Here's the Certificate of Property Use.....

http://www.ene.gov.on.ca/envision/en...8/010-3616.pdf

[MsMe]

The General Store at Eastgate has closed.

OLG at Eastgate has closed down their booths. I was also told that there won't be any OLG booths at any mall anymore. The only place at Eastgate that checks the 649 tickets is at Fortinos only. Shoppers still can check scratch and win tickets only.

Did Eastern Auto Electric close or move?

[matt602]

While talking about store closures, did Main Desserts completely disappear or did they move?