Quote:
Originally Posted by Doady
Huh? Power centres are replacing malls. The construction of power centres is the reason malls are being demolished. Did you think malls were going to be replaced by apartment buildings or something?
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That very thing is actually happening on the site of a former Sears at a mall in Burnaby, BC. Two condo towers are planned for the Sears site at Metropolis at Metrotown. There are also long-term plans to replace that mall with condos with street-level retail.
Mixed-use developments with ground level retail and apartments/condos above have been replacing malls in some cities including in Metro Vancouver, but the concept is unheard of in some regions. A good example, also in Burnaby is Brentwood Town Centre/The Amazing Brentwood, which been undergoing redevelopment for the past 4+ years and when I was last in Vancouver had its first retail spaces opening underneath new condos that people were moving into. The first time I visited Brentwood Town Centre a few years ago it was a fairly sad mall anchored by Sears and an abandoned Zellers. Another example in Burnaby under construction right now is Lougheed Town Centre.
Nobody is building new power centres in the Vancouver area; one of the only ones I can think of is Queensborough Landing in New Westminster, which is a nightmare to get to without a car.
Mixed use developments generally don’t exist in smaller cities, so the idea of putting apartments on the same footprint as mall retail is foreign to a lot of people outside larger cities like Vancouver and Toronto.