Chronamut said:
Don't think they're gonna touch center mall again for a while.. probably can't justify it after all the money they spent "redeveloping" it. For me it feels like such a waste of parking space.. and overreliance on cars, no pedestrian walkability, and our northern weather doesn't make for a fun experience navigating it.
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I agree a re-re-redevelopment of Centre Mall likely won't happen for a while. That said, the city's own MTSA Report (Aug, 2023) does consider the Mall a "Community Node" and states:
This area offers significant re-development potential, including opportunities for housing, employment, services, and recreation near each other and transit.
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and:
The Centre Mall site is identified in the City's urban structure as a Community Node, and future Mixed Use High Density land use designation in the UHOP.
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In fact, the final MTSA report relies on redevelopment at Centre Mall in order to meet density requirements for both the Kenilworth and Ottawa MTSAs, and without doing so, would mean no MTSA in East Central Hamilton could meet these targets (and keep in mind, the report also generously assumes 25% of all existing single-detached homes will be split into 4 units, and another 25% will be split into 3 units).

Ultimately though, I don't think another redevelopment could happen unless a new train station or simple platform opened at the mall, and height restrictions were lifted to match those at Eastgate and Downtown. I believe they are currently limited to 12 storeys in the area (someone correct me if I'm wrong), but that would never fly if it were to be a TOD... or TOC as the city calls them.

I imagine if the city were to initiate a re-re-redevelopment, it would be done in phases, and would begin with redeveloping portions of the parking lot around the central corridor before touching any of the more recently built strip mall buildings around the perimeter.
 
Let's face it - it's a shit place to live so close to the factories, and a shit region of the city to live in regardless - barton has always been the stain on hamilton. You got a long way to go before this area appears APPEALING to the type of people they would require to live in this region, so yeah, I agree, not gonna happen anytime soon. Maybe when flying pigs worthy revitalization of the entire barton strip happens will this area one day be "livable".

It's amazing how quickly the rot set in when one thinks this used to be a beautiful horse racing track. Where did we go wrong?
 

Evolving Eastgate Square: 4,000-plus-unit development reaches milestone​

www.thespec.com

Evolving Eastgate Square: 4,000-plus-unit development reaches milestone

More than 4,000 residential units in towers and townhouses are planned at Stoney Creek mall.
www.thespec.com www.thespec.com

Overall, the Eastgate project is to be rolled out in four phases that span more than 10 years.

In total, the plan calls for 4,325 residential units across several blocks of multiple 20-storey towers throughout the site, as well as 91 three-storey townhouses along Kenora Avenue on the western flank.
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Noting “community outcry” over an earlier vision that called for towers of up to 42 storeys, Coun. Matt Francis asked what prompted the pivot to the lower 20-storey plan.

Hamilton’s land-use policy allows for 20 storeys “as of right,” Falletta responded, but he noted “we don’t know what the future will bring” as the project advances in coming years.
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I think Stoney Creek residents should count their lucky stars that the towers are capped at 20 stories. Compared to the development happening at GTHA malls like Centrepoint Mall, the Eastgate project is quite modest.
 
^Why? It appears that this redevelopment will increase shops, housing and space for institutions.
 
BCTed said:
I really don't want to see the mall downsized
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They can downsize the mall and not lose any stores (or any relevant stores). As it currently is, there are a lot of stores which are either empty or are hanging on by a thread.
 
Hope springs eternal. The mall is a community centre of sorts and I would much prefer the current setup with a contiguous building that includes a food court.
 
berklon said:
They can downsize the mall and not lose any stores (or any relevant stores). As it currently is, there are a lot of stores which are either empty or are hanging on by a thread.
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Adding over 10,000 residents too the mall parking lot may help with future sales... If anything they should be increasing the size and upgrading it to work in conjunction with the project.
 
Scottyholden said:
Adding over 10,000 residents too the mall parking lot may help with future sales... If anything they should be increasing the size and upgrading it to work in conjunction with the project.
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Agreed. You would hope that some critical mass would be picked up at some point.

While a bunch of new homes would help out the city's tax base, a proper shopping centre has much more utility to me (and I hazard to say all of us from a community aspect) than does a bunch of residences. And a scattered set of stores accessible from the outdoors just is not the same thing.
 
Scottyholden said:
Adding over 10,000 residents too the mall parking lot may help with future sales... If anything they should be increasing the size and upgrading it to work in conjunction with the project.
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It may not add much in future sales though, since there are plenty of people living in the general vicinity of the area to keep Eastgate alive - yet it's been pretty much dead for the last 30 years anyway.
I think the size they end up with will be much better aligned with the amount of people that will be shopping there. Anything more and I think it'll just be more dead stores.

Plus a bigger mall will take away from the amount of overall units/residents - which means less people to shop at these bigger mall anyways.... unless you build them taller - which no one wants.

I'm all for more retail around residences, but there's no point in making the same mistake with a larger underutilized mall again.
 
A smaller scale version of The Well could work here it would be quite the community hub for this end of town. I'm only talking about the residential, retail and entertainment aspects I don't expect office tower component.
 
The problem is they are bulldozing the inactive parts of the mall (and the foodcourt) and a buncha business, but all the buildings they are adding ALSO will have stores on the ground floor. I don't get why the city keeps tryin to do this - we DON'T live in california - people do not want to go and walk outdoors from building to building - it did NOT work for center mall - there is no walkability there, its a nightmare to walk through and it just caused an even greater over-reliance on cars - everyone hates it. So you're essentially not removing the amt of businesss, just replacing them with exterior ones. People like malls because they can peruse and maybe see something they didn't intend on buying instead of purpose walking into a store to get something - and it is out of the elements, and they can have a sense of community by bumping into each other - the food court actually does this a lot - the malls used to be where kids used to socialize - I don't get this siloing effect the city keeps trying to do.. I don't really see any communal areas proposed in this area, so how is this supposed to help people foster a community vibe?

In my experience this just silos people - where a bunch of people live in the same area but none of them really engage with each other. No proposed food court I can see - and the only green space is right in front of the entrance. In addition east gate mall has one of the biggest accumulations of apartments just east of it, there is no lack of people in this area.. people just dont wanna shop anymore! They get everything from amazon, that's why these places have gone under - and there isn't even a wal-mart here anymore.

I hope they keep laura secord at least - it is at least still in the place that will remain on that inner corner there. That is the ORIGINAL laura secord location. It's been there like 50 years.
 
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Yeah, I only cheer for development when it boosts the possibility of adding new services for community use (or at least maintaining existing ones), not when it comes at the expense of them.
 
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