Ranchlands commercial zone could go in 2018
A substantial commercial plaza could start to go up in Ranchlands this year, according to a Calgary-based developer who is now preselling his project on Parkview Drive and Ranchlands Boulevard.
Genco Developments secured rights to the fouracre parcel late in the fall in hopes of bringing the first commercial development to the community begun in the mid-1990s.
New artist renderings and a pre-sales brochure show a five-building layout on almost three acres, including professional buildings looking over bluffs and the river valley, a gas station and carwash and possibly restaurant and other small retail bays.
“We envision a bank, retail, services, takeout ... a gas bar, medical offices,” said Pali Bedi, of Genco Development Corporation.
“It’s a concept that can change. But we’ll move on it quickly if there’s interest.”
Bedi notes the project could be done in phases, but he expects potential tenants to be impressed with initial plan and attracted the built up demand at the location.
The general lack of retail, professional offices in the vicinity as peaked his interests in the project, he told the News in last November, when the conditional $800,000 sale of the four-acre parcel was approved by council.
Currently, the only major commercial zone north of the South Saskatchewan River is the Northlands Pointe and Northlands Co-op on 23rd Street, plus smaller neighbourhood commercial blocks on Eighth Street NW, 20th Street, NE and Third Street in Riverside.
Those serve 15,000 northend residents, said Bedi, including the generally affluent, but entirely residential community of Parkview, next to the Genco site, which also borders on the still expanding neighbourhood of Ranchlands.
The land sale has an August deadline for most conditions to be met.
At the time of the sale, the city’s land office and elected officials said it was another example of patient money arriving after a downturn and betting on Medicine Hat.