Retail site planned for city's northeast
Drug, grocery stores eyed as site anchors at University Heights
By Cassandra Kyle, The StarPhoenix
March 4, 2009 8:01 AM
A large parcel of land in Saskatoon's burgeoning northeast is slated to become a retail centre built to serve the 31,000 people now living within three kilometres of the site.
Pillar Properties Corp. has purchased 23 acres of serviced land on the corner of Attridge and McOrmond drives and is courting tenants for what will become University Heights Square.
Neil Evans, president and CEO of Pillar Properties, says it is a development the area has been waiting for.
"It's been long-awaited to have this type of development out there, and in this area we're going to work very hard to have a very nice development to complement what's already out there," he said.
"One of the potential tenants coined the site as a one-in-10-year opportunity, because as the rest of the area gets built out . . . there is no land put aside for commercial of this size."
University Heights Square will sit near five neighbourhoods that are established or under construction -- Arbor Creek, Erindale, Forest Grove, Silverspring and Willowgrove -- and Evergreen, which is slated for development to the north of Willowgrove
The company notes Evergreen will add significantly to the number of people in close proximity to the square.
Plans for the shopping centre hinge on which tenants take up space in the square and are therefore subject to change, but draft plans for the site include space for a grocery store, a drug store, a home and garden centre, several smaller retail spaces, three restaurants and a hotel.
Evans, who co-owns Pillar Properties with the company's vice-president of finance and CFO, Basil Waslen, said the company is working to secure its anchor tenants for the grocery, drug store and home and garden centre space before moving on to other parts of the development.
Although it's not a priority, Evans thinks a hotel would work well in the space.
"We think there's a demand out in that area," he said. "It's fairly close to the (SaskTel Sports Centre) soccer centre, for instance, and this past weekend the provincials were on there and teams were in from out of town and that hotel would have been full if it was there today."
Evans added bringing additional restaurants to the east side of the city is a smart business move.
"The demand out there is great. I believe when Boston Pizza (on Nelson Road) opened up it has been running at near capacity since the day it opened up and I think you see that all through the east side of Saskatoon -- on a Thursday, Friday, Saturday night it's very hard to get into a restaurant on the east side of Saskatoon," he said.
Keith Webb, associate vice-president of Colliers McClocklin Real Estate Corp., which is marketing the square, said unlike the Preston Crossing and Stonegate shopping centres, University Heights Square would not be subject to development controls by the City of Saskatoon.
That means the developers have the final word on how large the buildings are and what type of companies move in.
One of the only types of properties not zoned for the square, Webb said, are movie theatres.
"It's interesting because from the city's point of view as a whole, it's the first piece that hasn't had a direct control district assigned to it," he said.
"You can get free rein as to the size you can build and what you want to build there."
Webb hopes local businesses take a close look at moving into University Heights Square, saying a mix of local and national stores would be ideal for the development.
"We're hoping to have some local entrepreneurial input -- a local aspect to it," he said.
At the earliest, construction will begin this fall, said Evans.
Potential tenants have toured the site, he added, saying the economic downturn isn't slowing interest in the development.
Eventually, the project will become a key part of northwest Saskatoon, an area that will be home to more than 40,000 people in a few years' time.
"You've got an area of Saskatoon that has relatively new residents and fairly high-income residents out in that area, so it's kind of a natural," Evans said.
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Developer:
Pillar Properties Corp.
Proposal:
University Heights Square
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)....we have a small thread on this topic 
. 8th should begin to see mid/high rise buildings in the not too distant future. With such a large concentration of retail and commercial, its only a matter of time before a developer comes along and integrates a residential project into the mix. Once that process is initiated, 8th Street could become Saskatoon's most densely packed corridor (of course, streetcar service or other would become necessary/viable).
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it doesn't get rid of the auto dependency completely, but it could be a first step towards pedestrian domination. Now, would you have those people who drive and park in the centre, exit their cars and make their way through an entrance on the interior of the square, or would they make their way around to the front of the businesses, thereby injecting some street life?
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