Quote:
Originally Posted by realcity
This station would be a gold mine for any other city. I don't know why there isn't a mini downtown around this spot. ?
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What would be your reasoning for one to already exist there?
As
matt602 noted, the area is industrial. It has been for decades. On the north side of the tracks used to be the region's waste incinerator, demolished 10+ years ago. The lands GO plans to use housed other industrial uses. Across Centennial where the retail wasteland sits was a massive scrap yard, and I can't recall but I think there was more industrial land that Home Depot now occupies. The lonely and half-empty commercial plaza and hotel have been there longest as non-industrial uses, built back in the mid-1980s I believe, and the Mazda dealership may have been there since the 1990s. There was also a motel on the west side of Centennial, just north of the tracks, long gone.
The nearest residential is south of Barton. Where would the local demand for "downtown"-type services and shops be?
And there's no GO transit service yet! What there will be for the near term will just be regional buses that have been moved from other sites, and probably some additional/adjusted HSR routing to meet them.
This area is pretty far from being "downtown ready" IMO. We'll likely see something more like that develop around Eastgate, close to the LRT and existing residential, per the city's long-term vision for the Centennial corridor.