What do you think of this project?

  • Total voters
    23
A lot of buildings built just before the Pandemic required significant street-level commercial. Now that much retail has shifted online, a lot of apartment building owners are changing those retail units to residential or office space.
 
Would that 50% allow for retail space similar to what was there before? I think the best way to think about this is not expanding or reducing, but maintaining what was in the area before.
 
trevorhayden said:
A lot of buildings built just before the Pandemic required significant street-level commercial. Now that much retail has shifted online, a lot of apartment building owners are changing those retail units to residential or office space.
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Not really, the retail asset class has been performing well and continues to do so. About 10 years ago a looooot of people were predicting that bricks and mortar retail was doomed but we've soon realized that while many retailers (both small and chains) have found there's a balance between having physical stores 'bricks' and online presence 'clicks'. Vacancies in neighbourhood retail and grocery-anchored shopping centres are low and are in high demand. The majority of the retail shift has more to do with broader changes in demographics, consumer preferences. Not saying that online shopping and growth of e-commerce powerhouses like Amazon/Shopify/Alibaba hasn't had an impact but it's not to the extent that most people assume.

Over time some real estate assets need to be repositioned. This can be the result of a number of things - poorly located site, changes to the surrounding neighbourhoods, date/obsolete space, etc.
 
David A said:
No, mandate the whole d*mn thing! This is one situation where the city needs to not let developers push them over too much.

There was a lot of retail there before, it was part of what made it a healthy neighbourhood and its return was what was proposed in the approval of the original redevelopment.

Some things should be non negotiable
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So would you rather have a developer build space that remains vacant for an extended period of time or have spaces that can be immediately occupied by people and activated? A lot of things need to be in place in order for main street retail to be successful - from the design of the adjacent road right-of-way, access to on-street/off-street parking, population density/income/demographics, shape of the site, frontage of the site, overall accessibility, etc.

The issue I have with 99 Street is that the roadway cross section as it's currently designed isn't the best to accommodate a continuous streetwall for retail and it certainly doesn't provide great space for pedestrians (it's quite hostile when walking along 99 Street). Perhaps this changes over time but there are no plans or considerations for the City to do so. What I do support is concentrating retail at key intersections along this corridor as this has the best chance to be marketable. I think it would be smart to design space that fronts onto 99 Street outside of intersections that can be used for live/work purposes so there is an opportunity to use the space for commercial purposes.

Mandating retail at grade because of a planning ideology isn't the best approach nor does it guarantee that retail use will succeed either - which doesn't do any good for the developer (risk and return), community (no services) and city (no taxes).
 
This isn't an area with a large surplus of empty space unlike some other areas of the city, so it probably makes sense to at least try replace what was there and perhaps expand it some

Yes, there were major shifts in retail to on line particularly during COVID, but not everyone rushing to buy on line was doing so because they preferred that, so I feel there will be some return to in person shopping and I do see that already happening to some degree. Planning to much based on some of the volatile trends of the past few years may not be the best approach.

In any event the businesses in the space before (grocery store and cafe) are the types that still primarily deal with people in person.
 
There is an interesting new White Paper put out on Retail in the modern era -- if you are interested, DM me and I will arrange to send you a PDF to your email address. It is a solid read supported with data and helps in the understanding of Retail in the post-modern world.
 
Any day now....

Frank's Pub

www.frankspub.ca www.frankspub.ca

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