Public meeting set for mall development

The redevelopment plans to transform Bonnie Doon Shopping Centre into an urban village with a mix of retail and residential are going public.

Residents of the area received flyers from the city this week detailing what is proposed, including a date for a public meeting. While the property owners, Morguard Investments Ltd., have been talking about redeveloping the area, these plans lay them out in detail.

A public information session is scheduled for 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. May 16 at La Cite Francophone, 8627 Rue Marie-Anne Gaboury.

The plans, expected to roll out over the next 30 years, include 6,000 units through a combination of row housing, mid-rise buildings and highrise buildings, as well as retail, office and other commercial space up to 93,000 square metres, publicly accessible gardens, parks and open spaces, and underground parking.

The 12-hectare mall sits at the corner of 82 Avenue and 83 Street. It opened in 1958 as Edmonton’s second shopping centre, but lost major tenants in recent years with the closure of Sears and Target, which is now used for a Stitches Factory Outlet. Morguard has managed the mall since 1994.

Margaret Knowles, senior vicepresident of Morguard, said earlier that new construction won’t happen before 2020. During the construction period, the mall, with its anchor of a Safeway grocery store, will stay open, but parking lot space and pieces of the mall will slowly be redone.

Ward 8 Coun. Ben Henderson said a residential area in that part of the city is a good idea.

“That’s going to be a fairly major connection for LRT. It’s going to be well-served by transit,” he said. “I think having a good, healthy mixed-use development there that actually puts residential units along with commercial and can use a whole bunch of that space … it would be crazy not to put residential units as part of that.”

A rezoning document submitted to the city in December last year by Morguard said development of the site will help Edmonton’s plans for more sustainable growth.

Andrew McLellan, a senior planner with the city, said the finer details of the plans were still being discussed.

“What we’re hoping to get from the people from the session is their thoughts on the concept,” he said.