from the T&T last week:
New development in works for Mapleton Road
Thursday, May 08, 2014
Times & Transcript
By: James Foster
http://22864.vws.magma.ca/index.php?&article_id=12759
Another stretch of Mapleton Road is poised for development, continuing the trend that is making that area one of the most coveted commercial districts in Atlantic Canada for retailers and health services.
Danmar Properties is developing properties straddling Lady Ada Boulevard and fronting on 599 Maple-ton Rd.
Danmar principal Nach Daniel says a rebounding economy and the properties’ choice location are conspiring to bring the project to fruition. Mapleton Road in the area of Wheeler Boulevard is already a bustling retail and services centre, and Cabela’s Canada and Princess Auto are currently working on new stores just north of there, near the Trans-Canada Highway (Route 2). Both of them are expected to further enhance Mapleton Road’s position in the marketplace.
“The more people come to this area, the more that people are going to want to come to this area,”Daniel says.
Negotiations are ongoing with prospective tenants. It’s too early to name who might be moving into the development, leasing agent Bertin Haché says.
“It’s an exciting location for investors, and it will be for shoppers too,” Haché says.
The development, set for the east side of Mapleton Road along both sides of Lady Ada Boulevard and extending beyond the existing Mapleton Medical Centre and Future Inn Hotel,
could include a big box retailer, at least one restaurant, possibly a bank and likely some services in the health-care field as well.
Daniel, also a principal in the medical centre, says that building will soon be full as a new private operating room opens soon in the centre’s underground space. He sees more growth in the private health care field in the near future and his new development will be poised to capitalize on that. The private OR will be used for personally funded procedures, such as plastic surgeries.
“This building is pretty much full now,”he says of the medical centre.
The developers will build to suit lessees’ needs, so it’s too early to tell whether the buildings will reflect the avant-garde architecture of the existing medical centre, since most chains strive for a common look for each of their buildings.
On the south side of Lady Ada Boulevard, expect a building of about 5,600 square feet behind the existing medical centre. Behind the Future Inn, the developers plan to erect a building of 14,200 square feet.
The biggest component of the project will be a 40,000-square-foot building on the northeast corner of Lady Ada and Mapleton, with a 14,500-square-foot edifice right beside it and a 5,000-square-foot pad in the parking lot. Behind the Future Inn but on the north side of Lady Ada, they plan to build a 23,000-square-foot building on that spot.
The project will unfold as demand warrants and not all at one time.
The project aims to meet the growing demand by businesses looking to establish a footprint in the growing mix of retailers and services along the road, Haché says. He notes an average of 30,000 cars per day drive by the location, which already has all the necessary infrastructure installed to accommodate customers, such as sidewalks on both sides of the four-lane Mapleton Road. Mapleton Park is almost across the street, making it an attractive place to work as well, he says.
Negotiations with one unnamed retailer are well advanced, he says, and expressions of interest have been received from a diverse array of companies, from restaurants and coffee shops, to a private, out-of-province educational institution.
Growth begets growth in the retail and service sectors, and Haché and Daniel predict that trend will continue to manifest itself in the coming months and years, further transforming that area of Mapleton Road.
According to Enterprise Greater Moncton figures, there are 1.3 million consumers within a three-hour drive of the location, representing $60 billion in retail spending annually.
Personal note - this article refers to this development that we alluded to on this forum a few weeks ago…...