This site has continued to be an ugly empty lot since I last posted in this thread almost 2 years ago... it pretty much looks the same as the Sep '21 google streetside view (
https://goo.gl/maps/iagqWY7v6jAFAwg9A), except some of the black tarping has blown loose and the fencing is looking worse for wear.
This past week there was an excavator on site, but it wasn't clear what they were doing, it just looked like they were moving some rocks around (haven't seen any dump trucks on site). If it follows previous patterns, they will remove the excavator soon and the site will sit free of activity, in all its partially-started ugliness, for another year or so before they again place some equipment on site for a week or two to do some other kind of 'activity'.
Their activity pattern seems strange on this site. I'm curious as to why they would bring an excavator on site every year or so to move things around a little without apparently accomplishing anything? Are they skirting around some bylaw? It just seems weird.
Anyhow... maybe this will be the year when they actually build something here.
As a side note (but related), just down the street is another curiosity to me. It was excavated 10+ years ago, changing its appearance from a more natural landscape with mature trees (2009 Google maps:
https://goo.gl/maps/HmRABRb6ckaUKUgc8) to an unattractive excavated site (2012 Google maps:
https://goo.gl/maps/UN3JAVdmc1TVCGS56). And it has been left like this to the point where it has almost grown over again (2021 Google maps:
https://goo.gl/maps/sTmbVwn93JkqAAzr7), which is decidedly less attractive than if it had just been left alone. I'm assuming this was a project started by a company who faced financial troubles, but I really don't know the circumstances - only that it was dug up, had some stone dumped on site, and then left as-is.
Maybe I'm starting to sound like some nutjob complaining about unsightly premises, but I have come to realize that I'm really not a fan of companies digging up a site and then just leaving it sit (not unlike the downtown Texpark/Skye site), nor do understand why the city considers it an acceptable practice to just walk away and leave an excavated site in all its ugliness for years like this. I suppose it's just a pet peeve of mine, but I wish developers would just leave a site in its natural state until they are actually ready to do something with it (yeah, an overreaction on my part...
). Okay... rant finished.