Confederation Line (Stage 1) | In Service 1.0

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

This is disputable. The Gloucester Centre across Blair Station has a Bulk Barn and Loblaws. Now Loblaw is no Food Basics or No Frills. But it isn't Farm Boy either on the pricing scale. And if transit was really driving up retail rents, that Bulk Barn would have a tough time there.

I don't think you can make uniform assumptions across the line. There's clearly stations in neighbourhoods where higher end grocery stores wouldn't work. What works at a downtown station wouldn't necessarily work at a suburban station.

I wasn't assuming that these places would be mostly Whole Foods-type outfits.

That said, a lot of their clientele may also be paying *slightly* or much higher prices for stuff simply because they're a bit of a captive clientele. Not because they're well-off and don't care.

In urban food deserts quite a few people buy many of their groceries at dépanneur-type because they don't have cars and many of them don't even have transit passes to get to a grocery store. If you're gonna pop 7-8 on a round trip transit fare to a grocery store, may as well pocket that money and buy what you need from Mac's or 7 Eleven. (Assuming they have it, of course.)

[Uhuniau]

Originally Posted by CityTech

Big supermarkets are awful for people like that. I was very glad when the Westboro Farmboy opened because until then the only store in the area was the superstore which is extremely suburban and doesn't cater to urban style shoppers at all despite its location between two urban neighbourhoods (heck at that store you can't even get a basket or a small shopping cart most of the time, forcing you to haul around a friggen SUV shopping cart just to get a few things )

One of my absolute peeviest of all peeves is retail, esp. grocery stores, whose checkouts (self- or full-service) don't provide you with the physical space to bag your purchases into your own bags/backpacks/wicker baskets/dog's saddlebags.

This is gonna have to change as the death of single-use plastic shopping bags comes closer and closer.

[acottawa]

It is a little surprising how little transit-oriented retail has appeared (or been proposed) along the LRT line. The Rideau Centre seemed to make an effort to cluster some transit-oriented business near the entrance (Shoppers, Farm Boy, LCBO) but nothing new at Gloucester Centre or St Laurent (despite the latter probably having the best direct connection on the whole system).

[MalcolmTucker]

These things take time - when they’re ready to expand I’d bet they’ll expand.

Here is what the owners think: https://obj.ca/article/morguard-mulls-major-makeover-st-laurent-mall

While the shopping centre will remain the key component, “you could see an office building coming up there, an apartment building coming up there, a hotel, or all of the above,” he added. “In the future, (St. Laurent) will be one of our core development opportunities.”

As for others:

A few kilometres east of St. Laurent, RioCan and Killam Apartment REIT are building hundreds of rental apartments near Blair station and Gloucester Centre.

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by acottawa

It is a little surprising how little transit-oriented retail has appeared (or been proposed) along the LRT line. The Rideau Centre seemed to make an effort to cluster some transit-oriented business near the entrance (Shoppers, Farm Boy, LCBO) but nothing new at Gloucester Centre or St Laurent (despite the latter probably having the best direct connection on the whole system).

Developers are going to be slow to develop around stations to make sure there is a real market to do so. As we saw, we had long delays in opening up C-Line. One can imagine the enormous losses if retailers had set up shop for the original May 2018 opening.

There is going to be hesitation. We just have look at Walkley Station where a hotel and condo opened right next to the proposed station that has been delayed for over 10 years. Naturally, a second proposed condo has not been built at the location at least partly because of this.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by acottawa

It is a little surprising how little transit-oriented retail has appeared (or been proposed) along the LRT line. The Rideau Centre seemed to make an effort to cluster some transit-oriented business near the entrance (Shoppers, Farm Boy, LCBO) but nothing new at Gloucester Centre or St Laurent (despite the latter probably having the best direct connection on the whole system).

Thank you. This is exactly what I was getting at in my own muddled thought process.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by MalcolmTucker

These things take time - when they’re ready to expand I’d bet they’ll expand.

Sure. But they had 5 years of construction. Why was Cadillac-Fairview the only mall owner planning for the massive change in transit with their renewal?

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

Sure. But they had 5 years of construction. Why was Cadillac-Fairview the only mall owner planning for the massive change in transit with their renewal?

Good timing, beyond just the Confederation Line. In 2012, the Convention Centre had been open for a year, allowing the Rideau Centre to re-open its expansion plans (as they said at the time, they did not want major construction happening on two ends of the mall at once), the City re-aligned the Confederaiton Line tunnel to under Rideau Street in part to better connect to the Rideau Centre, and the Sears lease was bought-out by CF in order to welcome Nordstrom, leaving room for a food court re-location and, at the same time, room for a subway entrance within the mall as envisioned by the City.

For St-Laurent, the station configuration remained the same and Sears continued as their main anchor until its bitter demise a year ago. No obvious opportunity presented itself over the last 5 years.

It's worth noting that Morguard, the owner of St-Laurent, was focused on Downtown over the last 10 years, with Performance Court, capturing Shopify as its signature tenant, the rehabilitation of the former Garden of the Provinces complex across from Lyon Station, attracting Hilton to Ottawa, and the integrated subway entrance at Heritage Place on Queen and O'Connor. They've also purchased (part of) the John Edmonds Towers, consolidating an entire city block within their control. Morguard has been busy, jut not with St-Laurent.

Brookfield, as owner of Place de Ville, IMO, has no excuse for its lack of action over the last 5 years. A renovated but bland plaza between Podium and Tower C, along with a pair of new escalators at PdV I is all they have to show from direct subway access. Otherwise, the theater is still abandoned, the fountain at PdV I, one of the coolest features of PdV, has been removed and the escalator up to the Delta Hotel has been boarded off for about 5 years.

[sseguin]

PdV dissapoints me as well. Lots of empty space in the underground concourse that could be capitalized on now with LRT traffic right into that level. The Delta escalator situation is really unacceptable. They should replace it with a double escalator up and down. Or an elevator and just the stairs. There is no accessible access from the lobby level to the concourse.

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by sseguin

The Delta escalator situation is really unacceptable. They should replace it with a double escalator up and down. Or an elevator and just the stairs. There is no accessible access from the lobby level to the concourse.

The same thought comes to my mind every-time I use the Delta stairs. If I had a say, I would go for the elevator option.

Within the PdV I block, only one elevator goes up to street level. All four go down to parking level. All elevators in PdV II (four in the food-court, about six in the Marriott) go up to street level however, the tunnel connecting to the Marriott has a few stairs, making it inaccessible.

[J.OT13]

Sounds like people do lean on them.

The flexible yellow bollards on station platforms are there to discourage anyone from stepping into the gap between train cars. Please do not touch or lean against the bollards. They are there for your safety, not for support. http://ow.ly/LXDx50xngVR

https://twitter.com/OC_Transpo/status/1200429418277158914

[Kitchissippi]

"There for your safety, not for support." Sounds like every insurance scam. These regulations are producing rules that a look fine on paper to be followed blindly and waste budgets on but in reality achieve very little.

[PHrenetic]

Originally Posted by Kitchissippi

"There for your safety, not for support." Sounds like every insurance scam. These regulations are producing rules that a look fine on paper to be followed blindly and waste budgets on but in reality achieve very little.

Good Day.

Agreed. More, though, is that this was to have been my point earlier.... too often that which is built purportedly to fix or prevent is too often only making it worse.

I hope they re-examine the rational behind this failure of a construct, 'best practices' notwithstanding.

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

Good timing, beyond just the Confederation Line. In 2012, the Convention Centre had been open for a year, allowing the Rideau Centre to re-open its expansion plans (as they said at the time, they did not want major construction happening on two ends of the mall at once), the City re-aligned the Confederaiton Line tunnel to under Rideau Street in part to better connect to the Rideau Centre, and the Sears lease was bought-out by CF in order to welcome Nordstrom, leaving room for a food court re-location and, at the same time, room for a subway entrance within the mall as envisioned by the City.

For St-Laurent, the station configuration remained the same and Sears continued as their main anchor until its bitter demise a year ago. No obvious opportunity presented itself over the last 5 years.

It's worth noting that Morguard, the owner of St-Laurent, was focused on Downtown over the last 10 years, with Performance Court, capturing Shopify as its signature tenant, the rehabilitation of the former Garden of the Provinces complex across from Lyon Station, attracting Hilton to Ottawa, and the integrated subway entrance at Heritage Place on Queen and O'Connor. They've also purchased (part of) the John Edmonds Towers, consolidating an entire city block within their control. Morguard has been busy, jut not with St-Laurent.

Brookfield, as owner of Place de Ville, IMO, has no excuse for its lack of action over the last 5 years. A renovated but bland plaza between Podium and Tower C, along with a pair of new escalators at PdV I is all they have to show from direct subway access. Otherwise, the theater is still abandoned, the fountain at PdV I, one of the coolest features of PdV, has been removed and the escalator up to the Delta Hotel has been boarded off for about 5 years.

I understand major construction is expensive and time consuming. But there hasn’t been even minor improvements: some new stores, sprucing up the decor, even a new paint job. St Laurent isn’t a fancy mall, but most of it looks pretty decent, but the part coming out of the station looks like 🞵🞵🞵🞵.

[MalcolmTucker]

Originally Posted by acottawa

I understand major construction is expensive and time consuming. But there hasn’t been even minor improvements: some new stores, sprucing up the decor, even a new paint job. St Laurent isn’t a fancy mall, but most of it looks pretty decent, but the part coming out of the station looks like 🞵🞵🞵🞵.

If there lease timelines don't align for them maximizing value though, we can't expect them to make that move today. Sport Chek and the cinema, need to go or shift so that the area can be reconfigured. With the mall and parking already being multilevel, the investment for any move is higher.



If they could get the Bay and Sport Chek to move into the Sears space, along with a few more stores and the banks from the phase that is immediately next to the station (take a look at the distinct roofs), the connection to the station could be redone and re-targeted. Maybe an office tower on top like the OBJ article mentions, which could help fund a redo of the structured parking.

[Uhuniau]

The entire bus deck at St. Laurent needs a total overhaul, whatever happens on the mall side.

[PHrenetic]

Originally Posted by Uhuniau

The entire bus deck at St. Laurent needs a total overhaul, whatever happens on the mall side.

Good Day.

Agreed.

As I posed back in October 8 (#12761),

St.Laurent needs repairs to the roof.
Since my last observation two weeks ago (wherein I commented on the desirability of acoustic ceiling tiles), they have had (!) to install ceiling drainage pans (!!) at the structural joints between sections of tunnel. WOW ! They drain into the centerline (!) between the east and west rails. A shower, anyone ?!
Nope - they blew it trying to cheap out here, and this will be a definite eyesore for some time, until they get to biting the sour grape and just do it right. Dig it up and DO IT.

Now that the line is launched <snort> and the bus load is reduced, they need to schedule a full bus deck replacement, wherein they properly fix and seal the tunnel roof joints.

But that's just our humble opinion.

[Uhuniau]

Also where the redesign the entire bus platform to make it nice for humans waiting for their buses, bearing in mind the design failures elsewhere.

[Gat-Train]

Originally Posted by Uhuniau

One of my absolute peeviest of all peeves is retail, esp. grocery stores, whose checkouts (self- or full-service) don't provide you with the physical space to bag your purchases into your own bags/backpacks/wicker baskets/dog's saddlebags.

This is gonna have to change as the death of single-use plastic shopping bags comes closer and closer.

The ironic thing is, the inventor of plastic bags wanted them to be reusable. They were actually supposed to be greener than paper or cloth bags, since they're made from waste petroleum.

The technology wasn't the problem, but rather our throwaway consumer culture.

[Gat-Train]

Wasn't there supposed to be a Rideau Station—NAC pedestrian tunnel? Whatever happened to that?