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Surrealplaces said:
There is a project on Centre St N and 2oth ave that is under construction, and it has retail at base, but the city almost approved a design that had no retail. Myself along with a couple of others complained to the planner that it was a waste of an opportunity, and they went back to the developer wanting retail. Too bad I was asleep at the switch for 1741 lol.

For the record, I'm okay with projects like this not having retail, if it's not on a main corridor, but if it's on 33rd ave, 17th ave, Centre Street etc... it should have retail.
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Great job on taking action on the Centre St project! Hopefully sites like this one will keep enough people informed so that we can prevent future 1741s (and so it doesn't fall on the shoulders of single individuals to keep up with everything going on in the city).

I agree that retail is more important on main corridors. You basically need retail to form a critical mass so that people can walk to a single street and have all of their everyday amenities in one place. Speaking of which, I consider 12 Ave in the beltline to be a main corridor, but I see that many of the new condos have no retail at their base.
 
Interesting points. 12th ave sorta is, or at least it should be. I doesn't really have much personality. There's the odd bar here or there. Or the odd business in the tower base. There's no coherent flow. I think it may be forever doomed to play second fiddle to 11th Ave.

Based on the plans they have for centre street, I'm guessing we'll see more retail in future projects.
 
Surrealplaces said:
Complete loss of opportunity indeed!

Really 1741 is not much different than Avenue 33, except for that retail portion, which makes Avenue 33 so appealing. There is a project on Centre St N and 2oth ave that is under construction, and it has retail at base, but the city almost approved a design that had no retail. Myself along with a couple of others complained to the planner that it was a waste of an opportunity, and they went back to the developer wanting retail. Too bad I was asleep at the switch for 1741 lol.

For the record, I'm okay with projects like this not having retail, if it's not on a main corridor, but if it's on 33rd ave, 17th ave, Centre Street etc... it should have retail.
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I didn't know you could talk to the city about new developments. How does one go about doing that?

Good thing you got into the loop, sound like we dodged a bullet!
 
BKha said:
I wonder if 12th will also be doomed because of 10th ave? 10th ave is picking up steam and could end up being like 11th when all is said and done.
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Yeah, I think 10th probably plays into that too. 10th has quite a bit going on these days with places like National and Kraft and many others. 11th will always be sinonymous with Sinagpore Sam's (an institution, of the mental sort during Stampede) and The Amsterdam Rhino to me. The latter of which is sadly long departed, but Last Best which took it's place is pretty decent. When I think of 12th Ave, all I think is, "That's how you drive to the Saddledome."
 
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Construction on the new Beltline park
 

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Silence&Motion said:
Great job on taking action on the Centre St project! Hopefully sites like this one will keep enough people informed so that we can prevent future 1741s (and so it doesn't fall on the shoulders of single individuals to keep up with everything going on in the city).

I agree that retail is more important on main corridors. You basically need retail to form a critical mass so that people can walk to a single street and have all of their everyday amenities in one place. Speaking of which, I consider 12 Ave in the beltline to be a main corridor, but I see that many of the new condos have no retail at their base.
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12th to me is a main corridor also. Park point will have some retail facing 12th so that will help out a bit, but apparently the city has forgotten about 12th when it comes to some of the other developments.
 
Rendering of what Thomson Park (new Beltline Park) will look like.

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With retail vacancies at an all time low, I don't think we can say that 10th, 11th, and 12th are competing for retail among themselves. I'd say they're more likely to complement each other and provide spill-over. I don't see many empty storefronts on any of those avenues. What I do see is the city allowing developers to put up buildings that essentially turn their back to the street and create large dead zones. Despite that, there are many thriving restaurants and bars on 12th ave (Native Tongues being one of my favs in the city).

I think the area between 10th and 12th ave, 14th street W and Olympic Way has the potential to become a high-density, fully mixed-use neighbourhood like you find in the southern downtown peninsula in Vancouver, or along Queen/Richmond/Adelaide/King just west of Toronto's downtown core. This is the kind of area were every street is essentially a "main street". And with the Green line, the area's potential just got better.
 
Agree about the retail competition. With all the new towers that have gone up in the Beltline, and the new residents filling them, there is plenty of retail opportunity to go around. The city did indeed miss opportunities with some of the condos built or u/c on those avenues. Out of all the towers built or u/c along those avenues....only a few have retail (Mark on 10th, WAM 10th ave, and Park Point). The three tower complex of Stella/Nova/Luna has a total of only two CRU's. Missed opportunity for sure.
 
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I'm not sure what the final design of the north LRT corridor will look like, but centre street will definitely be changing. From the renderings in the Green line video it looks like it will be wider, and have sort of a St Kilda Road look to it.
 
I drove in to the office today and parked at the Garage Mahal (aka. the Centennial Parkade). It has a very interesting vantage on the work taking place south of the tracks. This view is looking ever so slightly South West and there are four cranes easily visible. The one closest in the foreground I believe is the Marriot Residence Inn. Just back from it and to the right is 6th & 10th. Further back and mostly obscured to the left is Maple Projects on 5th and 13th and then farthest back and roughly central is Smith on 8th and 15th.

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This second shot is looking South East. From the same spot. If I had a proper camera with a wider lens I probably could have captured it all in one shot. Anyway, There's a crane at the Place 10 site. How sure are we that this thing is only going to be a podium? Also, if you look ever so carefully in the back centre of this second shot you can see another little bit of crane. I'm not sure which project it's on, but it might be Park Point!

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