[Moncton] Northwest/Magnetic Hill Developments

[MonctonRad]

Originally Posted by BaseballFan

Sobeys has owned the land adjacent to the Home Hardware for years. Southeast of Home Hardware, south of the TCH and north of Mountain Road.

Indeed. This would be the ideal location for a small retail strip (grocery store, pharmacy, Dollarama, a few local services). Given the recent profusion of apartment projects in the immediate Magnetic Hill neighbourhood, I think this is a slam dunk. The main question is when. I would personally think sometime in the next 5-7 years myself.

[josh_cat_eyes]

Originally Posted by BaseballFan

Sobeys has owned the land adjacent to the Home Hardware for years. Southeast of Home Hardware, south of the TCH and north of Mountain Road.

I was aware that they owned it but I had thought they they sold it. It was for sale by Colliers International for several years if I’m not mistaken. I wonder when the last time this property was sold. I’m also fairly certain that the land behind the Irving adjacent to the golf course is zoned as commercial. It or the land across from McDonalds would also make a good locations for future commercial use. I agree with your timeline MonctonRad, 5-7 years sounds reasonable.

[L'homard]

Sobey's bought that property when I was a young man. They purchased it from John Ritcey, IIRC, who owned the hotel next door at the time. Someone with knowledge of how to check might want to see who the current owner is, because now I'm an old man and in the ensuing decades it might or might not have been disposed of by Sobey's real estate arm.
Sobeys/Crombie are not averse, however, to buying properties that they have no plans to use for decades so it wouldn't be surprising if they still own it. I can recall them buying land on the north side of Main Street in the far east end of Shediac and putting up a big sign saying Coming Soon New Sobeys, many decades ago. The sign stood there until it fell over after 15 years or so, and about 25 years after putting up the sign they finally built their new Sobeys store - on the other side of the town. The original property remains vacant all these years later.

[MonctonRad]

According to the SNB website, this parcel of land sold in May 2010 for $1.7M

And, on an unrelated note, the new traffic signals at Mountain/Charles Lutes are now fully operational.

[josh_cat_eyes]

Originally Posted by L'homard

Sobey's bought that property when I was a young man. They purchased it from John Ritcey, IIRC, who owned the hotel next door at the time. Someone with knowledge of how to check might want to see who the current owner is, because now I'm an old man and in the ensuing decades it might or might not have been disposed of by Sobey's real estate arm.
Sobeys/Crombie are not averse, however, to buying properties that they have no plans to use for decades so it wouldn't be surprising if they still own it. I can recall them buying land on the north side of Main Street in the far east end of Shediac and putting up a big sign saying Coming Soon New Sobeys, many decades ago. The sign stood there until it fell over after 15 years or so, and about 25 years after putting up the sign they finally built their new Sobeys store - on the other side of the town. The original property remains vacant all these years later.

Irving and Loblaws are notorious for this too. Loblaws have own property on the corner of Route 2 and O’Leary road in PEI since the late 1990’s, they even did site prep at one point. There is now a Tim Hortons in the front part of the property.
Irving bought land in Summerside for a new Kent and it has remained vacant for more than 15 years.

On the Sobeys front though, if I’m not mistaken they had also bought land next to the Kent on Harrisville and the had submitted plans for a store on Dieppe Blvd. before their acquisition of Co-op. I assume they still own those two pieces of land.

[MonctonRad]

To orient everyone (including lurkers and casual readers) to the discussion, I have made this map:



The potential commercial property up for discussion is outlined in red. Other properties recently developed, under development or proposed are outlined in blue.

a) - a good location for a commercial strip, possibly including a neighbourhood grocery store, pharmacy and local services/retailers. This property is backed by the TCH, giving good highway visibility. The presence of the highway would also tend to decrease the value of this property for residential development. Commercial development seems inevitable.
b) - two six storey apartment buildings (currently under construction)
c) - three six storey apartment buildings (approved but awaiting construction)
d) - four storey professional building to include a restaurant and pharmacy, and a four storey apartment building in behind (approved, but awaiting construction)
e) - six storey apartment building (currently under construction)
f) - four storey apartment building (proposed, awaiting PAC approval)
g) - four storey apartment building on Diamond Head Court (already built, but was not included in the aerial photo)
h) - IHOP (already built, but was not included in the aerial photo)

The rapid densification of the Magnetic Hill neighbourhood is somewhat remarkable. Between existing, under construction and proposed apartment buildings, there will easily be well over a thousand, possibly 1,500 units in this short stretch of Mountain Road and neighbouring Diamond Head Court. There is already a fair bit of commercial in the area too.

Magnetic Hill seems destined to becoming a subordinate suburban downtown core within the next 5-10 years.

[mylesmalley]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

And, on an unrelated note, the new traffic signals at Mountain/Charles Lutes are now fully operational.

With the way they had the flashing lights configured, the only way the city could have made that intersection less safe was to remove control there altogether.

Half of the people on Mountain stopped at the flashing yellow to let people on Charles Lutes turn left from their flashing red. Of course the other half of the cars on Mountain knew they didn't need to stop and flew through. In the past week I personally saw five near-misses.

The lights should have been activated properly from the get-go, or configured to be a three-way stop.

[MonctonRad]

There is a proposal to approve the "Worthington Subdivision" in the Pinehurst neighbourhood before the PAC.



This is the enclosed site plan. I find it most useful in that it incidentally also shows the plan for the Shannex campus soon to begin construction in the adjacent lands (land clearing is currently underway). This is the best look yet at the layout of this campus. They are maintaining a tree buffer between the campus and Wheeler Blvd, but the buildings will be very close to the highway, and I think should still be easily visible to passing traffic.

[BaseballFan]

[L'homard]

Thanks Baseball fan!
Would not be surprised to see this land bear fruit, as in groceries, sooner than many people think. But that's just me speculating. $60,000 a year tax bill for land that grows dandelions. Yikes!

[MonctonRad]

Indeed. The record posted by BaseballFan confirms that Sobeys is still the owner of that piece of land next to Magnetic Hill Home Hardware. I think, at the very least, this confirms that if there is ever to be a grocery store built out there (and I think there will be), that it will be a Sobeys branded store.

[josh_cat_eyes]

Good to know that it’s still owned by Sobeys! Good digging. May I ask if that is hard to do or if you have to pay to find out who owns a certain piece of property?

I can see this property being similar to the Sobeys property on elmwood. There could be a Lawton’s on the corner over by the Travelodge and have a small Sobeys facing towards Home Hardware. There is a few different orientations you could go with, depending on the grade.

[Franco401]

Surely this would be a small store to serve the existing and future residential area there, not a Sobeys Extra to replace the Northwest one. If there's no real grocery store between Wheeler and Main, kiss the remaining walkability in that area goodbye.

[MonctonRad]

Originally Posted by Franco401

Surely this would be a small store to serve the existing and future residential area there, not a Sobeys Extra to replace the Northwest one. If there's no real grocery store between Wheeler and Main, kiss the remaining walkability in that area goodbye.

This is all speculative, based on the rapid densification of the Magnetic Hill area, and the fact that Sobeys owns land next to the Magnetic Hill Home Hardware store.

I envisage a small retail plaza, with a standard Sobeys store, perhaps a pharmacy (Lawtons), Dollarama and a few retail services, much like what we already have on Elmwood Drive.

The Sobeys at the Northwest Centre would remain I would imagine. The distance between Magnetic Hill and the Northwest Centre is at least 4-5 km.

[habs33]

The CasinoNB hotel will be reopening August 29
https://www.instagram.com/p/CSouCy7DDwj/

[MonctonRad]

Originally Posted by habs33

The CasinoNB hotel will be reopening August 29
https://www.instagram.com/p/CSouCy7DDwj/

Finally!

It was looking a little desolate up there. They will however have missed the summer season.......

[MonctonRad]

Moncton city council has decided not to follow the advice of the PAC, and has approved rezoning of the parcel of land at 1888 Mountain Road to allow for construction of the self storage facility.



To be fair however, the size of the facility has been reduced, an eight foot opaque wooden fence is to be built, and a treed buffer of between 5-10 metres will be maintained between the facility and adjacent residential properties. This is probably satisfactory.

None of the adjacent landowners filed an objection, and the developer of the facility spoke well, no doubt influencing council's decision...........

[MonctonRad]

There is a large parcel of land that is in the process of being cleared, extending in a broad arc from adjacent to the eight storey Vizion by Quest apartment building (under construction on Lady Ada), southward behind the Four Points by Sheraton and the old NB Tel property, almost as far as the future trajectory of LJR Blvd.

This land is all owned by Thrive, and I presume they are preparing it for road construction and property subdivision. I believe the plan is for all this portion of the Vision Lands to become apartment buildings.



In the image above (from Thrive), the area in question corresponds to the cluster of orange buildings in the upper left of the site plan.

[MonctonRad]

There are now stakes in the ground on Twin Oaks Drive, where the first building of Thrive's Village at Twin Oaks is planned:





I presume this might mean that initial site preparation may take place this fall, prior to actual construction commencing next year.

[MonctonRad]

There are two small projects ongoing in the MID West Industrial Park. They are putting in the foundation for one of these projects, while the other is in the structural steel phase. I have no idea what either of these projects is.