Power Centre Development

[clynnog]

Originally Posted by waterloowarrior

site plan from p. 1

Which corner is this on?...the NW corner had a strip plaza, NE had a TD bank, SE had an aging (maybe closed now) peeler joint/restaurant and I though that the SW corner had houses on it.

Either way, it looks pretty uninspiring. Manotick is like Stittsville in many ways...the residents just want to be left alone and not have the City of Ottawa come out to them...despite the fact that many of them work in the urban area of Ottawa and use many of the facilities of the urban area of Ottawa.

[clynnog]

Reading today's Ottawa Citizen it looks like the City Engineer who is fighting part of the Kanata West development on his own isn't getting much help from other City Hall staff in how to conduct himself at an OMB Hearing.

Reading between the lines in the article about the OMB members comments to the Engineer it doesn't look good for his case. Hopefully in the time between hearing testimony he has the chance to understand what he can and can't say at an OMB hearing.

[TransitZilla]

Originally Posted by clynnog

Which corner is this on?...the NW corner had a strip plaza, NE had a TD bank, SE had an aging (maybe closed now) peeler joint/restaurant and I though that the SW corner had houses on it.

Either way, it looks pretty uninspiring. Manotick is like Stittsville in many ways...the residents just want to be left alone and not have the City of Ottawa come out to them...despite the fact that many of them work in the urban area of Ottawa and use many of the facilities of the urban area of Ottawa.

That is the NE corner.

The #1 and #2 buildings in the site plan are the TD Bank and Tim Horton's, respectively.

[Dado]

Originally Posted by clynnog

Reading today's Ottawa Citizen it looks like the City Engineer who is fighting part of the Kanata West development on his own isn't getting much help from other City Hall staff in how to conduct himself at an OMB Hearing.

Reading between the lines in the article about the OMB members comments to the Engineer it doesn't look good for his case. Hopefully in the time between hearing testimony he has the chance to understand what he can and can't say at an OMB hearing.

That's only part of his problem. His major problem is that it appears from the OMB member's comments that he can't present evidence with respect to matters that come under the auspices of a conservation authority, and that's the crux of the problem. It seems that the OMB cannot alter the decisions of a conservation authority even if the decision of a conservation authority was based on erronenous information. In other words, the findings of a conservation authority are final and so long as everything afterwards is procedurally correct there's nothing the OMB can do about it. One can understand that we probably do not want the OMB's mainly lawyer membership deciding on flood plain levels, but it means that reliance on the conservation authority to get things right is absolute. The City could still opt to do the right thing (which may risk appeal to the OMB...), but as it stands the only body with the power to stop this (short of the legislature itself) is the Conservation Authority.

Some day this is going to end in a flood of lawsuits, pardon the pun.

[TransitZilla]

Originally Posted by clynnog

Which corner is this on?...the NW corner had a strip plaza, NE had a TD bank, SE had an aging (maybe closed now) peeler joint/restaurant and I though that the SW corner had houses on it.

Either way, it looks pretty uninspiring. Manotick is like Stittsville in many ways...the residents just want to be left alone and not have the City of Ottawa come out to them...despite the fact that many of them work in the urban area of Ottawa and use many of the facilities of the urban area of Ottawa.

To be fair, the traffic to this thing would probably come right through Manotick on Bridge St.

If anything like this is to be built, it should be built 5 minutes up the road in Riverside South, which is at least inside the urban area. Putting this in Manotick is going to detract from the ability of Riverside South to develop any sort of concentration of commercial development.

[BlackRedGold]

Originally Posted by Ottawa Citizen

"I'm definitely against the development," said Janis Mazpolis, who has lived in Manotick for 20 years. "The population is not big enough to support these stores.

"It will create a dead area in the centre of town," he added, expressing worry that the big- box stores would close down area businesses.

"This is not the sort of thing Manotick wants," said Mr. Mazpolis. "It is a small community and we want to stay small and avoid all the pollution and traffic that big-box stores bring."

Traffic is one of the main concerns of Rideau-Goulbourn Councillor Glenn Brooks.

"River Road is now at capacity," said Mr. Brooks. "Both at peak hours in the morning, and in the afternoon."

"If you've got large box stores, people from the west are going to be driving over and the only way you can get to the proposed development would be to come through the village of Manotick."

Many stupid quotes in the article.

If the population can't support the stores, they'll go out of business and problem solved.

Where do they think the traffic and pollution are going to come from? From the big houses on the big lots in Manotick and Greely.

Why would people to the west go to Manotick big box stores when there are the same ones in Barrhaven that are closer?

If anything putting retailers that people want will reduce the need for Manotick residents to drive further away to shop at them?

[waterloowarrior]

some first capital realty news- they have a spiffy new website

Strandherd Crossing (Woodroofe/Strandherd)- A 20,000 sq. ft. GoodLife Fitness is under construction and is expected to open in Q1, 2008. This construction will complete the Strandherd development which will bring the total property square footage to 123,500 sq. ft.



Site plan


Eagleson Place - The redevelopment of this site was initiated by the opening in Q4, 2007 of a new 17,000 sq. ft. Shoppers Drug Mart, which will be followed by the opening of Home Hardware and Starbucks later in 2008. An additional 15,000 sq. ft. of ancillary uses is also projected during the fall of 2008 and the Spring of 2009.



site plan

they've also acquired 50% interest in the PetroCan across from their proposed development at Riverside/Hunt Club

[clynnog]

Originally Posted by waterloowarrior

Eagleson Place - The redevelopment of this site was initiated by the opening in Q4, 2007 of a new 17,000 sq. ft. Shoppers Drug Mart, which will be followed by the opening of Home Hardware and Starbucks later in 2008. An additional 15,000 sq. ft. of ancillary uses is also projected during the fall of 2008 and the Spring of 2009.



site plan

they've also acquired 50% interest in the PetroCan across from their proposed development at Riverside/Hunt Club

Thanks for the updates WaterlooWarrior. On the Eagleson site, where is the Starbucks going to be located...in the 'future pad' closer to Eagleson. (it looks like it has a drive-thru). It looks as though the entrance to Michael Cowpland Drive will be closed and a new entrance built to the west.

I had heard that the entire plaza (minus the Loblaws which is gone) except for the bank was going to be demolished and new retail put in plus an office tower at the west end of the site. My optometrist is in there and they are moving across the road in a couple of weeks. The bank in that plaza has been empty for about 2 years now.

Is this plan going through the City process now?

Great info, btw

[waterloowarrior]

^unfortunately I don't have any other info

fyi the google earth imagery in part of Kanata is updated (not in gmaps yet)... you can see a bunch of the development that's been going on east of Scotiabank place

Manotick Power Centre - community position

[Cre47]

Originally Posted by waterloowarrior

^unfortunately I don't have any other info

fyi the google earth imagery in part of Kanata is updated (not in gmaps yet)... you can see a bunch of the development that's been going on east of Scotiabank place

Manotick Power Centre - community position

However, we don't see the development along Hazeldean Road and the residence areas south of the Bank (you can still see no construction there and not even the Palladium Auto Park is shown) and also in Stittsville and most of Brookside and Morgan's Grant as well as near Fernbank and Eagleson.

[waterloowarrior]

.

[waterloowarrior]

cedarview and strandherd

[waterloowarrior]

300 Hunt Club (At Riverside) - future home of T&T

Dev. Application page

[Jamaican-Phoenix]

And Lo, another sea of parking...

[TransitZilla]

Originally Posted by waterloowarrior

300 Hunt Club (At Riverside) - future home of T&T

Dev. Application page

For those who think the Marriott proposal is bad- this is FAR worse.

All the retail along Riverside is oriented away from the street and toward the parking lot.

There is no sidewalk along the driveway at the east of the site. There is no attempt to hide parking along the back of the site.

Just another typical big-box development.

[citizen j]

^True, but I guess you have to "pick your fights"... how urban do you expect to get at the end of a runway? Walkley Rd is a different kind of neighbourhood, and given the potential for TOD at the Marriott site, merits some rethinking with regard to the streetwall.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by bradnixon

There is no sidewalk along the driveway at the east of the site. There is no attempt to hide parking along the back of the site.

Just another typical big-box development.

This post reminded of something I noticed in Australia some years ago. Oz has lots of single detached residential suburban sprawl (more so than Canada I would say), but one thing they succeed well at is main shopping streets in the suburbs. At least in the places I went to (and I went to quite a few - pretty much all the main cities except Perth), there wasn't the acres of asphalt parking lots that you see in front of most businesses here.

Parking is generally at the back, and sometimes it is even multi-level. In-front parking, when there is any, is usually limited to about 10 spots like you would see on Montreal Rd. in Vanier or on some stretches of Richmond Rd. in the Westboro area.

Like here, suburban commerical areas in Australia are very auto-dependent, as they serve sprawling single-family residential areas that are nearby but not dense enough to offer anything beyond the once-an-hour local bus service you have in Orleans, Kanata and Barrhaven. So pretty much anyone that can drive will drive to these areas. But they do have more of a main street feel to them that is nowhere to be found on suburban arteries like Innes Road for example.

[Radster]

I was in Perth, AUS last November, and noticed the same things while I was staying with family in the burbs. The parking lots in the back and a more human street presence was eye-catching, being in a suburban context. The local bus service however was amazing, it would run every 20-30 minutes, and you had a choice of how to get to downtown Perth, by either staying on the bus for 45 minutes, or by taking a 20 minute busride to Fremantle, and then a 20 minute commuter train to downtown Perth (which ran all day in both directions). Another commuter train line was ready to open even closer to where I was staying, it was built mainly on the center median of a freeway, with stations being accessible via stairs and lifts from overpasses, with this new line open, it would become a 3rd option, and cut travel time another 10 minutes or so. So as a result, compared to suburbs in Canada, many more people would do errands around town, including shopping, using public transit.

I live in the Plateau sector of Hull, and First Capital Realty started a new power centre development on Plateau Blvd, beside the RONA store, bordering the soon to be extended des Grives blvd. This action started only last week, and so far they are just moving earth around, and dumping gravel, flatenning the land, no word on what will be built yet. I tried searching for info online, no luck, but I will post news once it becomes available.

I actually had an idea not too long ago regarding local transit for my Plateau area. Since gas prices are rising, we need an alternative way to be able to go shopping in these power centres without driving. So to me, it seems logical to have local shuttlebus service which would run every 30 minutes, zigzag through a suburb like the Plateau and connect people to various points within a power centre. Perhaps smaller/shorter bus versions could be used, kind of like airport parking shuttles, to save on costs. This would also let people park the car and shuttle around the power centre instead of driving from store to store. People with STO passes could ride free, others could pay a special fare (which would be less than a regular full fare for STO routes), like $2 for a day pass, or maybe even have the city of Gatineau offer this as a free service to residents of a given suburb? Anyway, seems like a logical idea to me in terms of greening the city, I wonder if it will ever happen.

[waterloowarrior]

those are some really interesting posts... a newly developed street like Innes could have easily had a similar feel. do either of you have any pictures of these suburban strips, or know the names of some of these suburban centres/shopping streets?

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by waterloowarrior

those are some really interesting posts... a newly developed street like Innes could have easily had a similar feel. do either of you have any pictures of these suburban strips, or know the names of some of these suburban centres/shopping streets?

One place I went:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:S...village-1w.jpg

It's a long way from Innes Rd.!