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  #21  
Old Posted Apr 25, 2010, 3:15 AM
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It's fine to say that retail should be downtown and that there should be good transit service and so on but that's not what the HRM has and it's not likely to happen anytime soon. It's in fact much worse because there is so much obstructionism downtown.

I also don't think that suburban retail areas need to be as terrible as Bayers Lake is. Part of the problem with Bayers Lake is its awful design. It could have been mixed-use with much better access for everything - cars, transit, pedestrians, and cyclists.
Most big box stores belong in suburban business parks. They would be out of place in a dense downtown city core. The core should concentrate on restaurants, pubs, specialty retailers, neighbourhood services (grocery stores, pharmacies etc.) and commercial service providers (like Staples).

My main objection to Bayer's Lake is the absolute lack of planning that went into this development. It wasn't even supposed to be a retail development in the first place and then just grew like topsy to become the monster that it currently is today.

Despite this, I am not against expanding Bayer's Lake. This might in fact be an opportunity to correct some of the past wrongs of this development - I'm thinking particularly of traffic access and traffic flow here. Also, most of the stores that usually set up in a place like Bayer's Lake wouldn't seriously think about locating downtown in the first place. An expansion to Bayer's Lake would be more of a threat to Dartmouth Crossing than to downtown.
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  #22  
Old Posted Apr 25, 2010, 5:34 PM
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Originally Posted by MonctonRad View Post
Most big box stores belong in suburban business parks. They would be out of place in a dense downtown city core. The core should concentrate on restaurants, pubs, specialty retailers, neighbourhood services (grocery stores, pharmacies etc.) and commercial service providers (like Staples).

My main objection to Bayer's Lake is the absolute lack of planning that went into this development. It wasn't even supposed to be a retail development in the first place and then just grew like topsy to become the monster that it currently is today.
I would've agreed with you until I visited Vancouver and saw what they had done with Cambie street around the Olympic Village and Broadway/City Hall stops of the Canada line. In an urbanized downtown setting - they had big box retail, stacked on top of each other with residential above. The same is true for Toronto on Younge Street - they have big box retail right in the heart of downtown and when I visited the stores in both cities, they were busy! Now I qualify that with the fact that Toronto and Vancouver downtowns have a significantly higher population than the core of HRM - but I really believe that allowing them on Gottingen Street would be a way to help bolster that area with good planning (such as a large public parkade to replace individual parking areas).

As to the planning of Bayer's lake - that is where I agree with you. The access points are horrible and the driveway and intersection configurations are just not well thoughtout at all. I remember when living in Halifax one particular Christmas holiday when the police were called out and closed the park to new traffic because the traffic that was already in the park was just at a standstill. There was no parking available! I couldn't believe it - that too me said it all. Plus added to that, no sidewalks.

If I could re-plan the whole area there would be such huge changes, but I don't have a billion $
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  #23  
Old Posted Apr 25, 2010, 8:19 PM
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Cambie Street in Vancouver has a Whole Foods, Home Depot, Canadian Tire, Save on Foods, and Best Buy. By the Stadium SkyTrain station there is an urban format Costco under an overpass that works quite well. Vancouver has a large downtown Sears, The Bay, Holt Renfrew, Chapters, and Future Shop (there's also one of these on Broadway near Cambie).

I don't think there's any particular reason why Halifax couldn't have some of these things other than a lack of storefront or development space and concerns over competitiveness with suburbs due to different tax rates and subsidies.

Simply adding a big electronics store (Future Shop or Best Buy), book store (Chapters or Indigo), and hardware store (Home Depot, Kent, Pierceys) downtown would greatly improve the range of retail and would make it less necessary for people living on the peninsula to go out to Bayers Lake.
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  #24  
Old Posted Apr 25, 2010, 8:51 PM
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Smaller large format stores such as Chapter's/Indigo or Future Shop/Best Buy could work very well in the central peninsula. When I said that big box stores belonged in suburban business parks, I was thinking more of Home Depot, Costco and such.
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  #25  
Old Posted Apr 25, 2010, 9:16 PM
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Thanks someone - I knew I missed a whole bunch of other examples. In Toronto's case, I think it was a Future Shop on top of a whole bunch of smaller commercial retail units (CRUs) and then HMV next door (you can see it reall well using google street view).

Google Streetview Link

Hope that works. But it would be interesting if the commercial floor plates for say the roy building and these new developments on Gottingen Street were adapable to allow something like these modified formats of these big box retails. Plus, I'd say if Vancouver could have a home depot in this type of format; why can't Halifax?
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  #26  
Old Posted Apr 25, 2010, 10:11 PM
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There's a Future Shop in downtown Toronto as well as a Best Buy I think (Dundas, in the bottom of a Ryerson building). I think there's also going to be an urban format Home Depot.

In Europe there are a couple of examples of urban format IKEAs. Imagine how convenient something like that would be for apartment dwellers on the peninsula.

Even having something like a Home Depot in the city isn't a big deal, you just build it over two floors and put parking on the roof or underground. There's room for something like that on Queen Street.
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  #27  
Old Posted Apr 25, 2010, 10:23 PM
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i think that big box could work downtown as someone123 said with more than one floor ect.
take the shoppers for example which isnt really big box but is a good example as well as sportchek i think on spring garden.
i was in dartmouth crossing the other day and was just amazed at the amount of successful stores and shops that they had that downtown didnt.
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  #28  
Old Posted Apr 26, 2010, 1:04 AM
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Definitely things like a Chapters/Indigo or a Future Shop/Best Buy would work downtown, but I would hate to see a Wal-Mart on Barrington

Some sort of hardware store too possibly. It Home Depot or Kent wanted to setup some sort of "urban" shop, obviously without the lumber or building supplies, that might work. I wonder if having Zellers back might be a good idea too. Wouldn't mind seeing Sears or The Bay setup shop either. Again, obviously not as big as say the Zellers at Mic Mac, or Sears at HSC - but something a little smaller.

A downtown Sobeys would also be interesting.
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  #29  
Old Posted Apr 26, 2010, 2:43 AM
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Here in Calgary on the Stephen Avenue Mall (which is pedestrian during the day and auto at night), we have a big box Winners and a Sport Check. The winners went in quite nicely; the sport check stands out a bit more.

I think the tavern site would be a got spot for an urban sobeys, or even a full format sobeys/superstore - if the floor plate is right. Parking might be an issue, but if enough units go in; it could do well. I know the urban sobeys in Edmonton on Jasper and 104 has no parking and it does really well (especially when the summer farmers market is open on 104th on Saturdays).
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  #30  
Old Posted Apr 26, 2010, 2:56 AM
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The Home Depot here has things that people would buy when renovating urban properties like condos. They don't have building supplies like wood, although maybe you can order them from a suburban location.

There are the Superstore and Sobeys locations that are more or less downtown in Halifax but totally suburban-style developments. I'm not really sure if there's a spot that would be worth it for Sobeys since the population of the downtown core is so small. Few people live right around the central part of Barrington and farther south people are close enough to Queen Street.

Really the key to having lots of good retail downtown is just to have high population densities. Having a Sobeys on Barrington would be a no-brainer if there were 10,000 people who could walk there in 10 minutes or so.
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  #31  
Old Posted Apr 27, 2010, 12:04 PM
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an urban sobeys would work so well downtown. im surprised there isnt one already on the peninsula. i used to frequent the one in downtown edmonton on my way to from work when i lived there. its a great concept.
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  #32  
Old Posted Apr 27, 2010, 1:41 PM
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an urban sobeys or superstore is a good idea, becuse the closest ones i think are the sobeys on queen st, and windsor and north, and the superstore on barington.
if anyone wants to live downtown shouldnt they have perks like places to shop for food without over spending.
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  #33  
Old Posted Apr 27, 2010, 2:45 PM
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Pete's Frootique is in the center of downtown.
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  #34  
Old Posted Apr 27, 2010, 3:42 PM
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Pete's Frootique is in the center of downtown.
i find a lot of thier stuff is pretty pricey but i guess if your living downtown anyway you should be able to afford it.
there still is things like meat, pasta, ceral bread, correct me if petes has these thing.
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  #35  
Old Posted Apr 27, 2010, 4:39 PM
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Originally Posted by -Harlington- View Post
i find a lot of thier stuff is pretty pricey but i guess if your living downtown anyway you should be able to afford it.
there still is things like meat, pasta, ceral bread, correct me if petes has these thing.
Pete's does have all that, but just many of the items are more exotic or things you wouldn't find elsewhere. I also find there's a more cultural selection at pete's as opposed to sobey's or superstore. It is definately taylored to the downtown clientele.
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  #36  
Old Posted Apr 27, 2010, 6:52 PM
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Originally Posted by Wishblade View Post
Pete's does have all that, but just many of the items are more exotic or things you wouldn't find elsewhere. I also find there's a more cultural selection at pete's as opposed to sobey's or superstore. It is definately taylored to the downtown clientele.
An article I found on the Sobeys Urban Fresh in Downtown Edmonton (in case some haven't seen what's it - since it's been discussed).
http://www.onlyhereforthefood.ca/200...s-urban-fresh/
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  #37  
Old Posted Apr 28, 2010, 1:16 AM
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i think that would be really cool in halifax, the look of it would fit on spring garden but petes is already there, i think somewhere near the water would be cool and with the cafe feature it would add to the area maybe put a tim hortons in there, aha
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  #38  
Old Posted Apr 28, 2010, 3:17 AM
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Kinda sad that small supermarkets are now being packaged as a new concept..

I'm living near two Sobeys and a Metro store in Toronto, none of which have parking...Pete's is really the only thing comparable in Halifax, and I think it's great they opened there.

anywho, aside from the stupidity of expanding a business park that has already proven itself deadly to the downtown, I'm against it because it'll destroy a very cool trail over the exposed bedrock out there.
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  #39  
Old Posted Apr 28, 2010, 12:38 PM
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Originally Posted by -Harlington- View Post


i think that would be really cool in halifax, the look of it would fit on spring garden but petes is already there, i think somewhere near the water would be cool and with the cafe feature it would add to the area maybe put a tim hortons in there, aha
I actually think that the north end would be a great place for this. (I am thinking like the area around St Josephs/Hydrostone). Pete's is great, but is really tailored to high end. This sort of concept of Sobey's strikes me as one that would work really well in the sort of rejuvinated and beginning to be hip area around the Hydrostone. You've got a lot of younger people/families there, the area is growing, and it is attracting people who like the idea of a "livable" neighbourhood.
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  #40  
Old Posted Apr 28, 2010, 3:45 PM
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i think the north end of gottigen before it turns into novela is a good spot and it would fit the area well
or maybe closer to downtown where the new developments on gottigen are going.
either way halifax is in need of fresh ideas like this.
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