Pickering Pickering City Centre | 174m | 55s | CentreCourt | Diamond Schmitt

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Northern Light

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Interesting Plan, reasonably ambitious.


From the above document:

182779


Nothing that I could see on their website about 'implementation'.

My only quibble w/the plan, and it's not a small one, is leaving Pickering Town Centre intact and trying to work around it.

I think that's bad for what's already a 'B' mall; and far from good urban planning.

A discussion w/the mall owners should see the mall shifted to north and east sides of their property, with towers over top, parking underground, and a 3-level mall interior.

That would free up room to divide the block into 4, with a new N-S street and a new E-W subdividing the mall property and creating some basis for a more fine-grained street grid.

Leaving the mall intact creates some absurd walking distances for pedestrians outside mall hours.

Besides, the existing mall is looking a bit rough, its food court is a generation (or two) out of date, and its 'Bay' store more closely resembles a Walmart than the Hudson's Bay Company at STC, Yorkdale or Queen.
 
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innsertnamehere said:
^lucky for you the mall is planning on tearing down its eastern portion and intensifying. right now they have a vacant Sears and old Cineplex space to replace (Cineplex recently moved to a new build space on the west side of the mall).

https://www.durhamregion.com/news-story/8966736-more-on-pickering-mall-partnership-for-downtown/
Click to expand...

I don't know that it's 'lucky for me', but I am glad to see it. TY for the link.

I have to laugh at the renders of the pedestrian space, with almost no people in it at all, looking like a ghost town..............LOL

I wish they had an overhead view w/any grid changes.

Another article on this here:

 
I don't think that document from 2013 reflects the current plan. But looks like there aren't any city reports available yet, just some news articles.

Renderings are credited to aA.
 
I hope they don't make it one of those outdoor malls I like the indoor malls and they r few and far between now. Much better for shopping
 
Northern Light said:
My only quibble w/the plan, and it's not a small one, is leaving Pickering Town Centre intact and trying to work around it.

I think that's bad for what's already a 'B' mall; and far from good urban planning.

A discussion w/the mall owners should see the mall shifted to north and east sides of their property, with towers over top, parking underground, and a 3-level mall interior.

That would free up room to divide the block into 4, with a new N-S street and a new E-W subdividing the mall property and creating some basis for a more fine-grained street grid.

Leaving the mall intact creates some absurd walking distances for pedestrians outside mall hours.

Besides, the existing mall is looking a bit rough, its food court is a generation (or two) out of date, and its 'Bay' store more closely resembles a Walmart than the Hudson's Bay Company at STC, Yorkdale or Queen.
Click to expand...

The mall is likely staying as is- things like rent durations and sunk infrastructural costs/desire to remain continuously profitable really make a massive reconfigurations impossible- it reminds me of how long it took for the Remington Centre to get underway because of these logistical issues.

However, I could see some 'erosion' of the mall envelope, especially if they trim the ends off the eastern and southern portions of the mall. The eastern portion is entirely doable considering that the Sears is vacant, this would allow the creation of an additional N-S route. The southern portion would require the relocation of the Bay, but could allow for another E-W route.
 
Kelly0086 said:
I hope they don't make it one of those outdoor malls I like the indoor malls and they r few and far between now. Much better for shopping
Click to expand...

This, this, a thousand times this. Outdoor malls might make sense in California or other sunny locations, but they are a terrible idea for a place like the GTA. Half the year, you have to wade through snow, slush or just cold weather to get from one store to another. Plus it's simply more of a chore to get around, even in good weather. I LIKE walking well-lit corridors, with no autos to watch out for.
 
Love to see this transit oriented development at the GO Station. This is exactly what we need, rather than more sprawling subdivisions. Just 20 mins from the downtown core. I hope there’s enough market demand for this type of development outside Toronto.
 
TheTigerMaster said:
Love to see this transit oriented development at the GO Station. This is exactly what we need, rather than more sprawling subdivisions. Just 20 mins from the downtown core. I hope there’s enough market demand for this type of development outside Toronto.
Click to expand...
20 mins? That's realtor talk. This is a 33 minute Express train and 40+ minute local (off peak) train to downtown.

Pickering has always struck me as undervalued due to the quick travel times to the core, but 20 minutes is a bit aggressive.
 
This is really fantastic to see. I really love that all the traditionally suburban satellite communities around Toronto are working on growing into their own full-fledged urbanized cities. Mississauga, Brampton, Vaughan, and Markham have all seen decent progress on working towards urbanization, and now Pickering is doing the same too.
 
innsertnamehere said:
20 mins? That's realtor talk. This is a 33 minute Express train and 40+ minute local (off peak) train to downtown.

Pickering has always struck me as undervalued due to the quick travel times to the core, but 20 minutes is a bit aggressive.
Click to expand...

Well damn, I’m in the wrong business then :eek:

Haha yea I don’t travel that direction on the GO network often

I’m afraid Pickering’s sluggish population growth will make the vision long to be realized.
 
TheTigerMaster said:
Well damn, I’m in the wrong business then :eek:

Haha yea I don’t travel that direction on the GO network often
Click to expand...
I sat on the train to Pickering for a full year during my university days to get to school (plus had another 30+ minutes of driving after to get up to Uxbridge), so I'm intimately familiar with the station and travel times ;)
 
Mongo said:
This, this, a thousand times this. Outdoor malls might make sense in California or other sunny locations, but they are a terrible idea for a place like the GTA. Half the year, you have to wade through snow, slush or just cold weather to get from one store to another. Plus it's simply more of a chore to get around, even in good weather. I LIKE walking well-lit corridors, with no autos to watch out for.
Click to expand...


I really like the revitalization plans here for Pickering and the suburban-urban bridge the creates main non-vehicle walk able outdoor areas surrounded by vehicle access with garages as well as public transit access. Very practical and underrated design.

And I fully agree a thousand times there's a very valuable lifestyle benefit building density around these central indoor malls

They're great for getting mild exercise or in the winter, more so for those getting up in years and even can be great meeting places to socialize. Many are now also catering to this more to creating traffic by providing entertainment and offering free yoga classes for elderly and stay at home parents.
 
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