Shopping on a full stomach
YOU ASK. WE ANSWER. Q: What’s happening at the outlet mall in Niagara-on-the Lake? There’s construction near the food court.
A: It’s all about having an outdoor dining experience — with craft beer as a bonus.
Joanne Ross, general manager of The Outlet Collection at Niagara, said the shopping centre is creating a permanent outdoor food and beverage area to increase its offerings.
A visit this week revealed the 7,500 square foot area is almost complete with food trucks, tables, benches, bean bag chairs and food trucks.
“We tried to elevate the whole experiential component of our property,” she said.
Ross said customer surveys for market studies have found that shoppers coming into the region are looking for those kinds of experiences.
When the mall first opened, it experimented with Food Truck Fridays in the parking lot but Ross said it wasn’t conducive in terms of their brand standards and what they wanted to accomplish. Parking was also at a premium.
“We made the decision to say if we can’t really facilitate mobile food options and do it right, then we don’t want it in our parking lot.”
They worked towards the vision of creating a permanent outdoor space instead, using a green grass area that has been fenced in near the food court since the mall on Taylor Road was built.
New vendors were signed on to complement what already exists in the indoor Eatery. They include Le Chateau chicken, Marble Slab Creamy, BeaverTails and Indian cuisine.
Silversmith Breweries from Niagara-on-the-Lake will be serving craft beer on weekends until Thanksgiving.
“We obviously want to support our community and our local food and beverage operators so we’re really happy to have all of these vendors that we have,” Ross said.
The grand opening is scheduled for Canada Day long weekend.
Q: How does a street qualify for curbs as well as for sidewalks? Some of our streets in St. Catharines have been in existence for approximately 50 years and have nothing. No complaints, just wondering...
A: New subdivisions in the city are built with sidewalks and curbs, but the older neighbourhoods were a different story.
St. Catharines director of transportation and environmental services Dan Dillon said sidewalks are typically constructed as part of a development.
Many older neighbourhoods built in the 1950s and 60s weren’t required to have curbs and sidewalks, so they don’t have them now.
The decision not to put them in would have been due to the design standards of the day, he said. And prior to amalgamation in 1961, St. Catharines’ various areas may have had different standards.
The city has converted some of its larger arterial roads, such as Bunting, to urban roads with curb, gutter and storm sewers. But in smaller subdivisions, the streets are normally left as they are if everything ’s working property.
Putting in curbs isn’t a single task.
Dillon said ditches provide storm drainage in areas without storm sewers. You can’t put in curbs without putting in storm sewers.
Today, any new subdivision in the city has curb, gutter and storm sewers.
Dillon said there is a mechanism for residents to ask for curbs through a local improvement process but the cost is born by the property owners. Residents have to get more than half of the properties on their street to sign a petition for curbs and each property owner would have to pay a certain cost per metre of the frontage.
“Typically we don’t get too many requests for that because it can add up to several thousand dollars per household,” Dillon said.
Sidewalk requests aren’t very common either because people typically don’t want them in front of their houses. If the city does get a request, it will take a look at the area. If it deems a sidewalk appropriate, it would use money put aside for sidewalks.
Q: When will the Mountain Road exit in Niagara Falls get a roundabout or street lights? Traffic there is unreal now.
A: There are no plans at present to make changes to the way drivers come off the Mountain Road exit into Niagara Falls.
Shawn McCauley, Niagara Region’s acting director of transportation services, said it’s not currently on the radar but that doesn’t mean it won’t be in the future.
He said they’ll likely have to do a traffic count analysis this year to see if there are more vehicles in the location than the last time they studied it.
If the numbers are high, the region would make a determination about whether changes need to be made.
He said the region has received one complaint about traffic at the exit.