Place d'Orleans: potential redevelopment?

[Uhuniau]

Originally Posted by TheseBoots

You do realize that pedestrian (meaning a walking person) does not automatically translate to dense(r). Non?

I don't understand what I'm being asked to realize.

Denser built environments are more efficient for people to travel by foot.

Sure we can.

We can if we wish to go broke, sure.

Sustainability. I don't think that word means what you think it means.

I am very familiar with it.

The burbs pay most taxes. Now, cut it out.

Low-density residential burbs do not pay for their own upkeep. They are heavily cross-subsidized by denser residential areas and commercial property taxes.

[lrt's friend]

Low-density residential burbs do not pay for their own upkeep. They are heavily cross-subsidized by denser residential areas and commercial property taxes.

Yes, lower tax assessments because of lower house values, and because density is lower, they require more infrastructure per household. This is the flaw with the property tax assessment model.

[DEWLine]

And it is so delightful to be damned for the choices that others made for many of us requiring our suburban residencies.

[DEWLine]

So far as I know, the "convert the second floor to office spaces to whatever degree possible" plan is still in play. I'll have to ask around to be sure.

[Dundas]

Place d'Orleans finally has a Starbucks inside. We lost the one that was inside the Target when it bankrupted. It's now located right next to the new food court location which is rumored to open November 1st. Can't wait to see if there will be other new food tenants.

So Orleans now has 6 Starbucks locations

[DEWLine]

And we lost our one Bridgehead on Innes at Mer Bleue. :-(

[Dundas]

That was one shitty location to put a Bridgehead. Its impossible to easily get in and out of that location.

[Dundas]

The new food court is opening Nov 1, come one give me a Jimmy the Greek!!

Source their website.

[Requin]

Food court is open, though a few vendors have yet to open including a burger joint I've never heard of. Only walked by, but the space looks much more inviting than the 2nd floor location.

I wonder how the closing of F21 will impact the mall...

[LeadingEdgeBoomer]

Originally Posted by Requin

Food court is open, though a few vendors have yet to open including a burger joint I've never heard of. Only walked by, but the space looks much more inviting than the 2nd floor location.

I wonder how the closing of F21 will impact the mall...

Marcello's Burgers-----I never heard of it before either--but apparently they have a couple of other locations in Ottawa.

It is a better set up than it was upstairs.

[DEWLine]

Marcello's locations are scattered across the downtown towers of Centretown and Secteur Hull. Terraces de la Chaudiere, the new EDC tower, Minto Place, and the old Met Life Building used to have one too. I'm mildly surprised to see them take an interest in the Place, but with the new federal telecommuters' mini-campus now in place on the second floor of the mall, maybe I shouldn't be. There seems to be a symbiosis there.

[MichelKazan]

Originally Posted by DEWLine

Marcello's locations are scattered across the downtown towers of Centretown and Secteur Hull. Terraces de la Chaudiere, the new EDC tower, Minto Place, and the old Met Life Building used to have one too. I'm mildly surprised to see them take an interest in the Place, but with the new federal telecommuters' mini-campus now in place on the second floor of the mall, maybe I shouldn't be. There seems to be a symbiosis there.

They’re opening one in the St Laurent food court too.

[Dundas]

but with the new federal telecommuters' mini-campus now in place on the second floor of the mall

What exactly is federal telecommuters mini campus? I just assumed the RCMP was expanding up there. How many employees are we talking here?

[kevinbottawa]

Originally Posted by DEWLine

Marcello's locations are scattered across the downtown towers of Centretown and Secteur Hull. Terraces de la Chaudiere, the new EDC tower, Minto Place, and the old Met Life Building used to have one too. I'm mildly surprised to see them take an interest in the Place, but with the new federal telecommuters' mini-campus now in place on the second floor of the mall, maybe I shouldn't be. There seems to be a symbiosis there.

I think there's a difference between the Marcello's markets and the Marcello's Burgers. Looks like the same company but a different concept/business.

[kevinbottawa]

I went to Place d'Orleans today to check out the food court. It looks good but still sucks. It seems to have less options than the upstairs food court did, even when the remaining restaurants open. What a let down.

[Harley613]

Originally Posted by kevinbottawa

I went to Place d'Orleans today to check out the food court. It looks good but still sucks. It seems to have less options than the upstairs food court did, even when the remaining restaurants open. What a let down.

That bad eh? To be fair it's a food court built for a mall less than half the size of the original...

[c_speed3108]

Originally Posted by Dundas

What exactly is federal telecommuters mini campus? I just assumed the RCMP was expanding up there. How many employees are we talking here?

It's basically a co-working facility for federal employees only. (I would assume federal employees that are not in Top Secret level jobs). The feds are trying these out in a few suburb locations. It's a two year experiment. https://www.newswire.ca/news-release...888710438.html

It's an "in between" alternative to commuting downtown (or wherever) and working from home.

The number of employees would depend on uptake on any given day. They seem to have several meeting rooms along the outer wall.

RCMP moved out years and was replaced by CMHC. They too have moved out and last I look that space was empty.

The co-working space is a different area from where the RCMP and CMHC was.

Edit:
This page gives a list of the locations and the participating departments:
https://www.canada.ca/en/public-serv...employees.html

[DEWLine]

I think that what Marcello's HQ has in mind for Place d'Orléans and St. Laurent is not going to be the same as in those three downtown office towers I mentioned earlier. It's going to be less than, just focusing on "Burgers and Beef".

[Harley613]

I just carefully added up the brand new leasing floorplan:
http://www.primarisreit.com/system/f...pdf?1575998850


Place D'Orleans now has a retail GLA of 528,181 and that includes all of the latest changes such as the Dollarama move, the Aubanerie/Marks, the Food Court move etc.

That is compared to the current blurb on their leasing page that says 'With approximately 761,000 square feet of retail area, anchored by Hudson's Bay, The Bay Home Store, Goodlife Fitness and Sport Chek Supercentre, Place d’Orléans is one of the largest shopping centres in the Ottawa area. '
http://www.primarisreit.com/portfoli...lace-d-orleans

[canadianinmichigan]

Originally Posted by Harley613

I just carefully added up the brand new leasing floorplan:
http://www.primarisreit.com/system/f...pdf?1575998850


Place D'Orleans now has a retail GLA of 528,181 and that includes all of the latest changes such as the Dollarama move, the Aubanerie/Marks, the Food Court move etc.

That is compared to the current blurb on their leasing page that says 'With approximately 761,000 square feet of retail area, anchored by Hudson's Bay, The Bay Home Store, Goodlife Fitness and Sport Chek Supercentre, Place d’Orléans is one of the largest shopping centres in the Ottawa area. '
http://www.primarisreit.com/portfoli...lace-d-orleans

Something I've always found odd about this mall. Place d'Orleans opened around 1980 as a very small mall(Only had a Dominion where Goodlife is and then the hallway between Goodlife and Sunrise Records. That was it). In '84 they built out the rest of the single-story hallways, then the Woolco/Walmart/Zellers/Target store in the late 80s, and finally the mall reached it's massive size in 1990 with The Bay(Formerly Eaton's) and 2-story section along with Vegas-style fountain. There wasn't just a lot of retail area, the hallways are very wide to handle big crowds and the food court was one of the largest in the region. You could get anything you could possibly want under the roof of Place d'Orleans. Instead of SUVs from local dealerships, the fountain area was used for actual celebrities to visit.

By this point, the parking facilities are also massive. I don't think they've ever had more than 25% of the spots filled even during the mall's heydey. What a waste of space. Although the surface lots near Farm Boy and the bus station are usually full, there's the under-utilized 2 story structure on the St. Joseph side, the underground garage, and the garage that was under Walmart/Zellers. The mall is also served by a large expressway interchange that never experiences congestion.

Fast forward to less than 10 years after the grand re-opening (Late 90s): Eaton's went bankrupt and The Bay took their space. The mall never fully leased out the original Bay store to retail. Vacancies in the smaller store spaces started adding up, and then the mall turned half the upstairs into a furniture store (Bay Home Store). In the early 00's they did away with the remaining upstairs corridor and that became a Sport Chek Supercentre.

In '05 Walmart left and the mall could never recreate the traffic Walmart brought in. After that, the surrounding retail areas began their downward spiral. Some other losses were the movie theater in Centrum and Loblaws. In the 00s, The Innes Rd. area and Trainyards also became new shopping destinations for the east end.

Now the upstairs is completely devoid of the main intention for the facility... shopping.

Recently, some malls in the region have expanded (Rideau, Bayshore) but most large malls are relatively stable (St. Laurent, Promenades, Billings, Carlingwood, Galeries). Yet Place has been shrinking and shrinking.

The point I am trying to make in this rambling post is that I believe the expansion of Place was badly planned and overly ambitious. The mall was only full for about 8 years. It's had an issue with vacancies ever since and has coped by essentially shrinking the mall bit by bit. I don't think high rents are the only reason and the decline started well before the Amazon age. I believe the decline was started by:
1. the mall being hard to access(not centrally located in the region, 174 no longer a provincial highway and Tenth Line no longer a planned inter-provincial link),
2. lack of shoppers (is Orleans big enough to support a large mall when Orleans residents can also go to malls in other parts of the city where most residents also work and hang out),
3. loss of anchors and many stores in Canada going out of business in general (unable to attract replacement for Eaton's, losing Walmart, and unable to fill the smaller store spaces),
4. retail activity in Orleans moving to Innes area (movie theatre, Loblaws, Walmart and Canadian Tire moving from the St. Joseph area. It's kind of inconvenient to drive to Place from neighborhoods along Innes. If you need to go to a store on Innes you will finish your errands on Innes).

Some people just believe the mall is cursed because the decor has a lot of illuminati symbols.

If I repeated anything already mentioned I'm sorry you read the whole thing