Paul Hillsdon writes:
You may also be interested to learn what the Tsawwassen have planned for their new treaty land. Apparently it’s a massive mall, larger than Metrotown, based on strip-style designs from Vaughan and Calgary. I’m sure the ALR activists will be up in arms over this.
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Let’s face it: this is an obscenity.
Just what we need another power centre on the edge of town along a highway on farm land, and more subdivision houses to follow behind in the subsequent stages that has no transit and that everyone will need to drive to get anywhere.
Why can we not build a mixed use development to start with retail and living together with parking under the buildings instead of the big power centre mall with 3000 parking spaces???
Exposure to ferry traffic, means more traffic getting to the ferry terminal.
So depressing. I wonder how much the public will care? After all that push back from Tsawwassen residents on the Southlands project to smart growth, has the band taken their cue and decided the future of Ladner is oh, so 20th Century?
Sad to see this type of development for a new space after watching this presentation that I saw earlier this year.
http://www.ted.com/talks/ellen_dunham_jones_retrofitting_suburbia.html
Hmmm… at first my concern was that the band would invest the money and the project would fail to attract enough consumers because of its isolation. But thinking about the communities of Ladner and Tsawwassen there isn’t a regional shopping centre serving them (a place with all the usual fashion retailers, furniture, etc.) so this could actually prove to be quite a good location for a traditional mall.
I agree it might be nice if it were more mixed use, offering condos, above, and row housing surrounding it. But because of the nature of the area–20th century suburban bedroom communities–I suspect it will be a profitable mall; this is the one piece missing from this 20th century suburban design.
Maybe we should toll the highways connecting to it. That is sure to change some things.