I wanted to take a quick second to give a couple thoughts on some of the industrial parks and the question that ODM asked and SO123 gave a comment on...
I think the industrial parks really need to be left as a industrial/office or potential future manufacturing (if I remember the zonings correctly?). Cities need to have cheap office space (class B and I think they call it class C too?) as incubator space for businesses - that's how they evolve to eventually move into downtown and become big sized corporations. So their value is important and should the economy of HRM really grow with research/development, manufacturing or offshore oil support - these areas will become even more important for growing those sectors.
That said - where I really see the biggest potential for future change is the big box retail areas of Bayers Lake and Dartmouth Common. I say that with the catch that this should only happen if a future regional plan should identify future transportation routes to go through these areas. I've posted
this map of my ideas for future higher order transit in HRM that takes advantage (and boosts) the corridors concept in the Regional Centre Plan and really works with the 7.5% idea that Rob Adams has of densifying around transit. If you look at Portland Street, all that auto oriented commercial along Portland Street could convert to low or mid-rise mixed use with an LRT along there.
I think the same principle could work for DC/BL - assuming some form of this plan occurs in the future. Think of it from this perspective: These sites (Dartmouth Common/Bayers Lake) are pretty buffered from other residential, have huge land sites with lots of open space because of the surface parking lots. Where better (should a future transit go through the area) to put tall, high density buildings? Take the Costco site in Bayers Lake for example - if my math is correct, that site is about 1.1ha. If 500 ppl/ha is a 8 stories (from Rob's presentation), then imagine what you could get out there if you crank the densities up (to support the transit) to 1500 or 2000 ppl/ha? We're talking up to 32 stories! You could easily blow away the costco - rework the lot grading so that the mainfloor of the building lines up with Bayers Lake DR on the corner and then build up. You could easily get 3 or 4 towers on the site and the costco could go back into the mixed use building in a more urban form!
The only catch with this plan would be that considering the cost of putting in the original infrastructure (and the lack of it being paid back in property taxes) - there would be a need to significantly reinvest in providing additional sewer/water capacity since the area wasn't designed for those densities. That can be recouped through levies, tax increment financing, density bonusing - you name it. But if you think about how much land area that the big box area in both areas is - that's a significant amount of potential future density.
In looking at how some of the big box stores are moving, I can tell you that Costco and Target seem to be leading the way with moving towards urban format (same with best buy) while Walmart keeps lagging behind (and I couldn't be happier frankly). But this is food for thought that while we might not be able to change them now...in 20 years, if we build LRT/BRT - the potential is quite high.