[Moncton] Northwest/Magnetic Hill Developments

[Monctoncore]

I remember a time where we would write about how we need to get out of the 4 story builds, now it’s we need to get away from 6.

[Nashe]

It's a different market out there now... I'm in the middle of planning a downsize from a SFH to an apartment for a few years post retirement. The number of $1800-$2100 units out there competing with each other is quite wild. They all have things like underground parking, dog and/or car-washing stations, gyms, golf-simulators, etc. 5-10 years ago that market did not exist.

[MonctonRad]

Found on Facebook:

Ward 3 Residents, Mountain Road Widening approved & coming in 2026: This work is taking place at the intersection of Mountain Road and Mount Pleasant Road and will impact one side of Mountain Road only. The work involves road widening, sidewalk renewal and installation of a retaining wall. The goal of this project is to extend the left-turn lane on Mountain Road (i.e. turning left onto Hildegard Drive). Exact date to be determined.

[MonctonRad]

The residential development rumoured for Corey Craig Drive, between Casino Drive and Charles Lutes Road is going to be presented to Moncton PAC.

Unfortunately, the rumoured residential towers that we were advised about last year have been replaced with a series of five six storey "Spitfire specials." instead.

Quality construction to be sure, but boring........

I will post the site plan and a rendering when I get home from work this evening.

As promised:

Site Plan



Rendering



This is the same company that is building the Franklin Yards development. There is a lot of commonality here. Multiple six storey identical or nearly identical Spitfire designed apartment buildings.

Mind you, I have grown to rather like the Franklin Yards. It's all in the execution, and I think they do a good job of that. The Franklin Yards feels well put together, and the product and construction values are pretty high. I imagine it will be the same here.

[MonctonRad]

This development will add over a thousand people to the Magnetic Hill neighbourhood. There is already a decent cluster of apartment buildings in this area now.

I wonder if this development might kickstart development of the Sobeys lands next to the Home Hardware? There have been increasing calls for a grocery store in the Magnetic Hill area. Could this apartment cluster increase the justification???

I firmly believe that the Franklin Yards development helped to justify the new retail development proposed for Emmerson Park.

[jonny golden]

I firmly believe that the Franklin Yards development helped to justify the new retail development proposed for Emmerson Park.

100%. I think this retail project will be just the first phase of development in this area. There is still ample land ripe for more building projects. I foresee more residential as well as commercial development in the future. The Franklin yards project kick-started everything. The original intention for this land is now dead and gone, and it's great to see a new vision unfold.

And I'm sure the city is pleased to see the tax base grow!

[Nashe]

That parking lot is insane. Imagine the hey-day of Champlain Place and getting stuck with a spot 3 miles from the door of Sears. Now instead of Sears it's your buildings lobby and you have 8 bags of groceries and 2 kids...

[MonctonRad]

Originally Posted by Nashe

That parking lot is insane. Imagine the hey-day of Champlain Place and getting stuck with a spot 3 miles from the door of Sears. Now instead of Sears it's your buildings lobby and you have 8 bags of groceries and 2 kids...

I'm not sure why they need such an ocean of parking. It appears that each of the five apartment buildings has underground parking as well.

[Leroy321]

I’m not sure when this was uploaded but I found this:






http://www.sammdevelopments.com/magnetic-hill-condos

[MonctonRad]

The address (2515 Mountain Road) corresponds to the Days Inn at Magnetic Hill, which is right next to the eastbound on/off ramps from the TCH. The developer (SAMM Developments) actually owns the Days Inn.

One wonders what is going on. Is this simply a proposal in order to gauge interest? Is this an actual plan? If so, are they tearing down the hotel (it is very old), or , a portion of it? This raises a lot of questions.

At some point something will have to be done with the Days Inn, It is in serious need of refurbishment or repurposing..

You are quite right in noting that we have no idea how old this posting is. Some pages on the internet live on forever and will never die. Maybe this page is no longer relevant.

[Taeolas]

For families "Walking distance to Magnetic Hill attractions" feels to be a bit of a stretch. While technically correct, I don't think I'd actually want to walk along Mountain road, past the exit/entrance ramps and under the TCH to get there; at least not regularly. I guess technically there's a sidewalk along the road for that stretch; but it's not really pedestrian friendly in general with the traffic volume and lack of any real separation. (and no bike lanes).

While it wouldn't be easy (probably impossible) to squeeze one in under the overpasses, if they want to make it more "Family friendly" the city should think of putting in a bike lane along MOuntain separate from the road itself. There would be plenty of room for it for the most part; but likely not much need for it yet. If we get a Grocery store node in there and a few more apartment/condo complexes, then maybe that would be worth it.

[MonctonRad]

I rather like the appearances of this building. More attractive than your typical Spitfire special. I hope it does get built.

It's rather amazing the density building up in the Magnetic Hill area, including all the apartment buildings going up on Mountain Road, the cluster on Diamond Head Court, the proposed five building cluster on Corey Craig Drive by CG group and now this proposal by SAMM developments. All totalled this will be at least 16 large apartment buildings within a small radius on the western fringes of the city, plus all the hotels, a few restaurants/QSRs and Casino NB. I think it's time for a retail plaza out there.

I think the Corey Craig Drive development will proceed expeditiously. CG is the same company as the one doing the Franklin Yards. They are a lot like Lafford - quick, efficient and they use an assembly line process in their developments.

[MonctonRad]

Originally Posted by Taeolas

For families "Walking distance to Magnetic Hill attractions" feels to be a bit of a stretch. While technically correct, I don't think I'd actually want to walk along Mountain road, past the exit/entrance ramps and under the TCH to get there; at least not regularly. I guess technically there's a sidewalk along the road for that stretch; but it's not really pedestrian friendly in general with the traffic volume and lack of any real separation. (and no bike lanes).

While it wouldn't be easy (probably impossible) to squeeze one in under the overpasses, if they want to make it more "Family friendly" the city should think of putting in a bike lane along MOuntain separate from the road itself. There would be plenty of room for it for the most part; but likely not much need for it yet. If we get a Grocery store node in there and a few more apartment/condo complexes, then maybe that would be worth it.

The density building in the Magnetic Hill area is increasing rapidly. I think the city will have to start enforcing a 50 km/hr speed limit in the area. Speaking from experience, traffic usually buzzes through here at about 80 km/hr, which is way too fast for a dense urban area.

I 100% agree that if bike lanes are added, they should be separated from the traffic lanes.

Your points about pedestrians crossing over the on/off ramps at the TCH/Mountain interchange are well considered. The eastbound TCH access already has traffic signals. I think these should also be added to the westbound off ramp as well. This would help a lot with pedestrian safety.

[jsom049]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

Found on Facebook:

Sigh, another band-aid for the traffic on Mountain Rd. that won't fix much. Someone is always trying to turn left onto Pasadena and blocking one of the lanes.

Mountain Rd. needs a true rebuild into some type of bvld. with a median, left turns only at lights and many of the side roads aligned. Sadly it would be hugely expensive with the city most likely having to claim/buy some land and the Wheeler overpasses needing to widen. Poor decisions by the planning dept over the past decades really coming back to bite the north end.

[MonctonRad]

Originally Posted by jsom049

Sigh, another band-aid for the traffic on Mountain Rd. that won't fix much. Someone is always trying to turn left onto Pasadena and blocking one of the lanes.

Mountain Rd. needs a true rebuild into some type of bvld. with a median, left turns only at lights and many of the side roads aligned. Sadly it would be hugely expensive with the city most likely having to claim/buy some land and the Wheeler overpasses needing to widen. Poor decisions by the planning dept over the past decades really coming back to bite the north end.

Lots of space constraints on Mountain Road limiting any further expansion, but, at the very least, they should look at widening the road to 5-6 lanes all the way from NBCC to Hildegarde Drive, with alternating east/west left turning lanes. I don't think this would be too hard to do. Mountain is already six lane at the intersection of Wheeler/Trinity.

I am very concerned however about the westbound lanes on Mountain Road at the new intersection with the Worthington extension between the Northwest Centre and NBCC. They did put in a center left turning lane towards Worthington, but it is pitifully short (will only accommodate about three vehicles). This is OK for right now, but, the Worthington Extension will be the main access point to the Station Yards development, which will eventually house up to 10,000 people. This will obviously be inadequate to serve the Station Yards. I imagine the short center turning lane now is just a stopgap. They will have to do a major traffic analysis and plan accordingly. I expect phase one of the Station Yards to begin this year.

[MonctonRad]

Current status of the Denny's/Starbucks/Fens/Petro-Canada next to the Mapleton/TCH interchange.


From Retail Talk & Share

[MonctonRad]

Interesting turn of events for the proposed apartment development on Corey Craig Drive, across from the Casino at Magnetic Hill.

50-80 Corey Craig Drive (South of Charles Lutes Road), Moncton NB (PIDS/NIDs: 70417001, 70649322, 70649348, 70423728) – The City of Moncton has received a request for a variance application for properties located at 50-80 Corey Craig Drive (south of Charles Lutes Road) to reduce the front and side yard setbacks, to increase the parking lot coverage to cover more than 35% of a lot, and to allow a driveway within 3m of a property line. The variances will accommodate the construction of five new multiple unit buildings, with a total of 667 dwelling units.

Here is the PAC decision:

MOTION DENIED:

Reasons for denial:

1. The project is not creating a complete community. We don't have any commercial essential services being planned for 667 units.
2. We are introducing over 1000 surface parking spaces when the goal of the city is to reduce surface parking.

So, it sounds like it is back to the drawing board for CG Group and for Spitfire Designs (unless city council chooses to ignore the PAC recommendations).

[Leroy321]

Really all the developer needs to do is to put the Costco size parking lot underneath the buildings and make a commercial component to the development kind of like what they did with Franklin Yards.

[adamuptownsj]

Wonder if cutting surface parking to ~850 spots and putting some ground floor commercial in the 3 buildings along Craig would suffice?

[MonctonRad]

Originally Posted by Leroy321

Really all the developer needs to do is to put the Costco size parking lot underneath the buildings and make a commercial component to the development kind of like what they did with Franklin Yards.

I don't know why they needed this much surface parking in this development. If you look at the site plan, it shows each building has underground parking anyway.

I agree. All they have to do is maximize the underground parking, reduce the amount of surface parking in the development site, and add in some ground level CRUs for "commercial essential services" like a convenience store and a hair salon and they should be ready to go.

CG Group's other big project (Franklin Yards) will include a couple of low rise commercial buildings in addition to the nine large apartment buildings. They just need to apply the same mindset here.

It should be noted that CG Group got away with a surfeit of surface parking with the Franklin Yards. They weren't so lucky here. I guess times have changed.