[Paclo]

A proposed 12 & 12-storey residential building and expansion of the existing commercial building designed by Zeidler and WZMH for Cadillac Fairview on the northeast corner of Upper Wentworth Street and the Lincoln M. Alexander Parkway in Hamilton's Thorner neighbourhood. A new Hamilton HSR Bus Transit Hub is proposed along with the development.

Renders from the Design Review Panel Presentation of June 2022:

The scope of future development can be seen in the phasing plan, where blue is future residential intensification, and phase 1 is outlined in red:

 

[Northern Light]

A proposed 12 & 12-storey residential building and expansion of the existing commercial building designed by Zeidler and WZMH for Cadillac Fairview on the northeast corner of Upper Wentworth Street and the Lincoln M. Alexander Parkway in Hamilton's Thorner neighbourhood. A new Hamilton HSR Bus Transit Hub is proposed along with the development.

Renders from the Design Review Panel Presentation of June 2022:
View attachment 420972View attachment 420973View attachment 420974View attachment 420975View attachment 420976


The scope of future development can be seen in the phasing plan, where blue is future residential intensification, and phase 1 is outlined in red:

View attachment 420978

I like the idea of intensifying this site; I can't say I'm enamoured with the specifics of phase 1, nor for that matter, the over all plan.

There are several different ways to approach this............ as regulars here will know, I'm never a fan of leaving a big blog of a mall parked in the middle of a site, more or less intact.

Even if one wished to retain the mall in some sense on site, I'd rather see an idea with similarities to 'The Well'; and something that that would certainly cut any impassable indoor mass down by 1/2 at least, if not 3/4 to create more fine-grained blocks.

***

That to one side, purely from a marketing perspective I'd be inclined to tackle urbanizing Upper Wentworth first........and probably trying to build a new public park in that initial phase as well, likely fronting one of the new streets or a re-aligned Mall road out to UW.

I mean, there's little to sell someone on buying at the moment, the area does not brim with appeal.

This is the phase 1site (approximately)

It's opposite this Fortinos supermarket (a division of Loblaws)

No so much as a sidewalk on that side of the street.

***

This is the Hydro Corridor behind the mall/phase 1 site. Someone will have to explain to me the utility of this fence, LOL

The final 'view' of phase 1 is towards UW:

Upper Wentworth is no prize here either............but still:

Close to transit, tree-lined bouvelard, landscaped median...........not great, but there's potential there. Though I would argue this road would really benefit from a diet. Cycle tracks would be a good addition here.

 

[Northern Light]

This is a different look at the site plan:

Phase 1 in greater detail:

 

[Northern Light]

It wasn't clear to me initially but now having look at everything, the parking here is mostly/entirely above grade, partially hidden by decking; very anti-urban.......thumbs down.

 

[innsertnamehere]

the road between the site and Fortinos here is a private service road for the mall, which is why it doesn't have sidewalks. Fortino's is the west GTA / Hamilton Loblaws equivalent, basically. It serves the same market segment. There is actually one store in Toronto at Lawrence and the Allen.

The parking is at grade along the west side of the site, but below grade on the east side.

The realities of building apartments in suburban Hamilton is that you have very limited budgets to work with.. shoving parking underground would likely break that bank. You have to get creative to actually deliver improvements.

I think this is generally fine, I imagine the master plan will evolve over the decades. I doubt CF is in any rush to build out the whole mall super quickly here. As I said, the Hamilton Mountain rental / condo market isn't exactly a super in-demand market. This first phase creates a much more attractive entrance to the mall and a useful public space to capitalize on the number of people coming and going from the mall. It's about as good as I think you could expect an initial development phase to be here.

it's important to remember that regional shopping centres like Limeridge (or Square One, or Sherway, or wherever) see the vast majority of customers come by car and which most customers are not from a local area at all. It's regional trips from dispersed market areas, which makes it challenging to reduce parking demand. Like it or not, Parking is king for these mall redevelopment schemes.

 

[innsertnamehere]

https://pub-hamilton.escribemeetings.com/filestream.ashx?DocumentId=346767

Looks like Tesla wants to open a dealership at Lime Ridge. Applying for a variance to permit vehicle servicing uses. Would replace the existing food court, which is planned to be moved to the old Sears space.

 

[Sunnyside]

the road between the site and Fortinos here is a private service road for the mall, which is why it doesn't have sidewalks. Fortino's is the west GTA / Hamilton Loblaws equivalent, basically. It serves the same market segment. There is actually one store in Toronto at Lawrence and the Allen.

The parking is at grade along the west side of the site, but below grade on the east side.

The realities of building apartments in suburban Hamilton is that you have very limited budgets to work with.. shoving parking underground would likely break that bank. You have to get creative to actually deliver improvements.

I think this is generally fine, I imagine the master plan will evolve over the decades. I doubt CF is in any rush to build out the whole mall super quickly here. As I said, the Hamilton Mountain rental / condo market isn't exactly a super in-demand market. This first phase creates a much more attractive entrance to the mall and a useful public space to capitalize on the number of people coming and going from the mall. It's about as good as I think you could expect an initial development phase to be here.

it's important to remember that regional shopping centres like Limeridge (or Square One, or Sherway, or wherever) see the vast majority of customers come by car and which most customers are not from a local area at all. It's regional trips from dispersed market areas, which makes it challenging to reduce parking demand. Like it or not, Parking is king for these mall redevelopment schemes.

While Limeridge is certainly in league with the other malls mentioned, it appears uniquely far from potential transit corridors compared to the other two. Square one has Hurontario, Sherway has potential for Milton/Line 2, etc. However, Limeridge is a fair distance from Mohawk for a pedestrian, Upper Wentworth isn’t a major street except near the mall, and the bus routes today simply divert into the mall instead of following their gridded routes. Any transit solution here will need a diversion/branch, which is less than ideal. I can foresee it being in the form of an A-line LRT/BRT branch, or a loop for the T Line to operate through (or both).

Either is possible, and perhaps necessary- the mountain is starved of development activity right now, but it’s one of the final untapped infill growth frontiers in the GTHA. With little residential greenfield left, even with the whitebelt, CF is likely slowly positioning Limeridge as THE mountain hub. Just needs some more love from the province and this can all get going more quickly.

 

[innsertnamehere]

Indeed, but even if you ran a line from Downtown up to Limeridge of some form, it wouldn't substantially lower parking demand here. Limeridge is the regional shopping centre for people from Beamsville to Simcoe and up to Brantford and Paris. It's market is simply too dispersed to see substantial decreases in parking demand.

 

[bAuHaUs]

https://pub-hamilton.escribemeetings.com/filestream.ashx?DocumentId=346767

Looks like Tesla wants to open a dealership at Lime Ridge. Applying for a variance to permit vehicle servicing uses. Would replace the existing food court, which is planned to be moved to the old Sears space.

View attachment 451091

I don't beleive the existing food court will be impacted, as it's on the ground floor and all of the docs point to the vacant 2nd floor space that's 60K sf. The food court may relocate in the future,

 

[Sunnyside]

Indeed, but even if you ran a line from Downtown up to Limeridge of some form, it wouldn't substantially lower parking demand here. Limeridge is the regional shopping centre for people from Beamsville to Simcoe and up to Brantford and Paris. It's market is simply too dispersed to see substantial decreases in parking demand.

If you can eliminate much of the local component, which is certainly large, you can probably see a substantial decrease- at least 50-60%. Consolidate the needed parking into a stacked garage, and the regional shoppers should be satisfied as well. The number of visitors from peripheral communities aren’t larger than the number of suburban Hamiltonians visiting imo (given their much smaller size). In any case, CF will ensure they get the best value of their land, even if that takes decades to flesh out. Parking will not be an issue.

 

[Branden Simon]

Active Green + Ross in Limeridge mall has been permanently closed down tonight to make way for redevelopment project and relocated to new building on 1200 Rymal Rd tomorrow.

 

[Chris R.]

Active Green + Ross in Limeridge mall has been permanently closed down tonight to make way for redevelopment project and relocated to new building on 1200 Rymal Rd tomorrow.

Finally. The redevelopment of Limeridge and Eastgate are probably the suburban developments I'm most excited for.

Limeridge's plan is a tad more tame, but despite being an urbanite that bikes and walks everywhere, I do like Limeridge quite a bit, and think malls have their place, especially in North America. Limeridge could really use a bit of an overhaul and the additional density will increase regular visitors to the mall. Plus the new food court looks like it will be far nicer.

 

[JasonBourne008]

Looks like the first two 12 storey towers will contain 320 units. [Source] - also cited above in the phase one site plan

Anyone have any estimates on the total number of units at full build out?

We thinking something around 3,000 units?

 

[innsertnamehere]

If you can eliminate much of the local component, which is certainly large, you can probably see a substantial decrease- at least 50-60%. Consolidate the needed parking into a stacked garage, and the regional shoppers should be satisfied as well. The number of visitors from peripheral communities aren’t larger than the number of suburban Hamiltonians visiting imo (given their much smaller size). In any case, CF will ensure they get the best value of their land, even if that takes decades to flesh out. Parking will not be an issue.

That's perhaps the case if you could get local modal shares to 100% transit - but good luck with that. A rapid transit connection would definitely lower parking demand, but I think you would be surprised at how little it does. Suburban malls in the 416 with rapid transit connections see barely lower parking demands than those without - look at Yorkdale which has a well established subway connection and large regional bus terminal but still needs thousands and thousands of parking spaces.

Limeridge serves as the primary mall for an area of about 1 million people - only about half of which live within the City of Hamilton, BTW. It's the primary shopping mall for those from parts of Niagara, Haldimand, Norfolk, Brant County, Brantford, and Hamilton, basically.

Structured parking is definitely an option over the long term, but you need the asking rents to be able to finance that. As it stands in suburban Hamilton right now, the asking rents barely even justify the most basic apartment intensification without any underground parking, more or less.. so it's got a while to go before it hits that place, at least for now.

 

[Chris R.]

Tesla is underway, today