Tsawwassen First Nation Updates - Page 6

officedweller · #**101** Posted **May 22, 2015, 11:34 PM**

From Tsawwassen Mills Twitter - taken in April:

https://twitter.com/TsawwassenMills/...528832/photo/1

Klazu · #**102** Posted **May 22, 2015, 11:39 PM**

What a landmark and destination building this will be!

osirisboy · #**103** Posted **May 22, 2015, 11:39 PM**

Why is the perimeter so jagged lol

officedweller · #**104** Posted **May 22, 2015, 11:44 PM**

Maybe to provide multiple loading areas and to space out bigger stores all along the mall?

osirisboy · #**105** Posted **May 23, 2015, 12:03 AM**

Just seems like a lot more than other malls

officedweller · #**106** Posted **May 23, 2015, 1:54 AM**

Vaughan Mills is also by Ivanhoe Cambridge and you can see it has the same pattern:

http://www.vaughanmills.com/Views/Di...y=alphabetical

... because it puts big box stores like Winners, Old Navy, H&M along the mall corridors.

SFUVancouver · #**107** Posted **May 24, 2015, 12:54 AM**

I hadn't appreciated that construction had progressed to such a degree.

tybuilding · #**108** Posted **May 25, 2015, 6:00 AM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by osirisboy

Just seems like a lot more than other malls

Just another mall with a huge parking lot, blah. Not much different from Willowbrook or any other mall.

Willowbrook Google Maps

TourOdeon · #**109** Posted **May 25, 2015, 6:48 AM**

Taking the concept from Lansdowne mall

DKaz · #**110** Posted **May 25, 2015, 7:03 AM**

I'm guessing all you naysayers have never been to Crossiron or Vaughn Mills. It's an indoor Seattle Premium Outlets.

https://www.google.ca/maps/place/Cro...!6m1!1e1?hl=en

https://www.google.ca/maps/place/Vau...!6m1!1e1?hl=en

Pinion · #**111** Posted **May 25, 2015, 7:10 AM**

Is cross border shopping as big a thing in Toronto as it is in Vancouver? I understand Calgary having one but I'm gonna drive right past Tsawassen on my way to Tulalip as always.

connect2source · #**112** Posted **May 25, 2015, 1:46 PM**

Yuck!! Car-culture at it's absolute worst!! I thought we'd moved away from these horrible and unsustainable designs.

Vin · #**113** Posted **May 25, 2015, 3:53 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by connect2source

Yuck!! Car-culture at it's absolute worst!! I thought we'd moved away from these horrible and unsustainable designs.

No, we haven't, absolutely not. Downtown maybe a little but not the rest of the Lower Mainland, especially beyond the Translink 2nd-3rd zone boundary

WarrenC12 · #**114** Posted **May 25, 2015, 4:19 PM**

Who is going to pay for the road expansion when this mall opens and becomes a traffic gong show?

s211 · #**115** Posted **May 25, 2015, 5:35 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by connect2source

Yuck!! Car-culture at it's absolute worst!! I thought we'd moved away from these horrible and unsustainable designs.

That loud bang you just heard is your bubble being popped.

city-dweller · #**116** Posted **May 25, 2015, 5:46 PM**

I might be one of the few, but I think this project is dead on arrival. With the expansion of retail in existing locations especially at the regional centres, are we over retailed? Also, who is the typically shopper they are going after?

Regional residents?
Northshore has Park Royal expanding, Capilano Mall expanding, Lower Lonsdale expanding. Downtown is constantly attracting new international brands. Don't want to go downtown, you have Metropolis. Metropolis hasn't stopped expanding since it combined Station Square and Metrotown malls. The new McAG at YVR has a great new mix. Too far south, don't worry Oakridge is going to expand. Don't want to go so far west, no worries, Guildford is expanding as is Coquitlam Centre.

Are they really offering anything that isn't already available?

So how about non-residents?
BC ferries has enough problems getting people to return to their cars with the little mall in the parking lot. I just don't see people coming more than an 1.5hrs to shop on the highway before getting on the ferry to visit Victoria. And who coming back from a trip is going to go shopping? It just doesn't make sense to cross for the day to shop there. If you are tourist, a highway mall doesn't sound as exciting as getting gelato with the view of the mountains before moving through Pacific Centre or along Robson.

The biggest attraction for T-Mills is dropping your kids at Splash Down Water Park and going shopping for the day.

Again, I don't see an existing demand for this mall in its location and what it is planning to offer. Unless the province has a hidden agenda for huge sprawling developments nearby, there isn't the demand. I believe we are reaching a point of over-retailed in the region. Those who are best positioned will come out on top. And, the investment in many of the older malls shows that many see the market tightening.

I actually hope I wrong about T-Mills. It would be such a waste to build over that fertile land for a white elephant.

EDIT: I didn't consider the impact on small businesses in Tsawwassen, Ladner, and Delta that have paid taxes for years will be undermined/out of business by this mall. (will it pay only taxes to TFN?)

Zassk · #**117** Posted **May 25, 2015, 6:31 PM**

city-dweller, I think you need to look at the realities of how malls are distributed around the Lower Mainland. This corner of the region probably has sufficient demand for a large mall easily accessed by car. For the large population that is wedded to their car, many of the existing malls are not as accessible or attractive as they used to be.

Richmond has 1 mall basically. Lansdowne is on a death spiral and is sure to be chopped up for a street grid and redeveloped into high density. The asian malls will never have a mainstream attraction. Richmond Centre is successful but is basically maxed out on its possible growth, and will never be able to match the size of larger malls.

Drivers from North and South Delta, South Surrey, Richmond all can get to Tsawwassen Mills much more easily and quickly than to Metrotown. It is basically a direct and comfortable drive on the weekend for those residents. This will be the largest and most convenient mall for them. None of these residents will ever patronize Metrotown or Lougheed etc. with any regularity. Driving south/west is much easier than driving north/east for them.

Even from Vancouver's West Side, for those who wish to drive to a mall, this may be more attractive than Oakridge or Richmond Centre, and certainly more accessible than driving to downtown or Metrotown.

A percentage of people from this side of the region may be habitual cross-border shoppers. This new mall is much less hassle to access than crossing the border, and that alone may siphon off some of those shoppers.

The new mall at YVR will be interesting, but I'm guessing it will not have much overlap with Tsawwassen Mills.

Sheba · #**118** Posted **May 25, 2015, 7:27 PM**

Zassk is spot on - this isn't about attracting people from the North Shore to head out to a mall in Tsawwassen. This is about attracting people from South of Fraser. Even from Surrey Central it's less than a 30 min drive. Throw in the plan to start tolling bridges and I can see a lot more SoF people heading here rather than to Oakridge, Metrotown or Coquitlam Centre. Anything beyond that would only be if they were already in the area for non-shopping reasons.

While I can't stand sprawling, car dependent design such as this, I'm not surprised by it. There is plenty of space, which isn't necessarily prime farmland. Why spend the money for underground parking when they don't have to? Sure maybe in the future they'll have to redevelop - just like the more dense areas of the metro have to now. Why should their life cycle be so different?

Vin · #**119** Posted **May 25, 2015, 7:31 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zassk

city-dweller, I think you need to look at the realities of how malls are distributed around the Lower Mainland. This corner of the region probably has sufficient demand for a large mall easily accessed by car. For the large population that is wedded to their car, many of the existing malls are not as accessible or attractive as they used to be.

Richmond has 1 mall basically. Lansdowne is on a death spiral and is sure to be chopped up for a street grid and redeveloped into high density. The asian malls will never have a mainstream attraction. Richmond Centre is successful but is basically maxed out on its possible growth, and will never be able to match the size of larger malls.

Drivers from North and South Delta, South Surrey, Richmond all can get to Tsawwassen Mills much more easily and quickly than to Metrotown. It is basically a direct and comfortable drive on the weekend for those residents. This will be the largest and most convenient mall for them. None of these residents will ever patronize Metrotown or Lougheed etc. with any regularity. Driving south/west is much easier than driving north/east for them.

Even from Vancouver's West Side, for those who wish to drive to a mall, this may be more attractive than Oakridge or Richmond Centre, and certainly more accessible than driving to downtown or Metrotown.

A percentage of people from this side of the region may be habitual cross-border shoppers. This new mall is much less hassle to access than crossing the border, and that alone may siphon off some of those shoppers.

The new mall at YVR will be interesting, but I'm guessing it will not have much overlap with Tsawwassen Mills.

Mall space can still grow by having the mall go taller. I think this is the kind of concept that people fail to realize here. It is just an irony that very dense neighbourhoods in Vancouver do not fully utilize their space by having malls that can go from 4 to 8 stories tall.

This Tsawwassen Mall just leaves a really bad taste in my mouth. It is like being transported back to the 60s and 70s when people were still driving their large Chevys, Lincolns, Plymouths, and, gasp, Pintos!

GlassCity · #**120** Posted **May 25, 2015, 9:08 PM**

I have lots of mixed feelings towards this development. It's obviously abysmal from an urban standpoint. But at the same time, this form of retail will never be obsolete. Rona is not the kind of place it will ever be practical to take a bus to. Big trips to stores where you stuff your trunk to capacity are still popular, so if we're going to continue to provide for this demand, I'd much rather it be here in the middle of nowhere than somewhere like Morgan Crossing, which had the potential to have been a legitimate urban destination.

Ladner and Tsawwassen will never be able to have proper, major retail high streets. They are both built out to the ALR, and the potential for densification is slim with their dysfunctional, suburban road layouts. So for the combined 40,000 people living there, it'll be much nicer to be able to go to Canadian Tire and Wal Mart locally, rather than having to cross the tunnel to Richmond and Queensborough.

At the same time, I am worried about its impact on our local retail scenes. I haven't been to Tsawwassen in a very long time, but Ladner's main power centre has been struggling lately, with more and more vacancies appearing. While most of them are small spaces that would hold a different set of retailers than this mall will hold, I still wonder if having a this "local" shopping centre will endanger the actual local shopping areas both communities already have.

Finally, I hope that this will be enough of a draw to warrant better bus service on the 620. Obviously this is going to be a place that just about everybody will drive to, but I hold out hope that the 620 could switch to a regular service, say every half hour, rather than matching up with ferries so as to become more reliable as a route for travel not between the ferries and Bridgeport Station.