Mississauga Square One District | ?m | 65s | Oxford Properties | Hariri Pontarini

[drum118]

This alone would be a major improvement to the area and significantly improve the pedestrian and vehicular flow of the area. Considering the age of the current Walmart building, it is likely well past its projected useful lifespan despite the recent interior renovations. Walmart also seems to clash with the direction Oxford is taking the mall (higher end retailers, as well as a focus on entertainment).

You are saying the age of Walmart is past its useful life cycle, then you are saying the original mall is also past its useful life cycle since were built at the same time. Do you know a 3rd floor can be added to Walmart as it was design for from day one??

Oxford screw themselves when they bought the mall while the mall being expanded to the west in doubling the size of the mall and wasted one year of construction by stopping construction and $100 million in today dollars for ripping out was plan that was better than what got built like the Movie Theater area.

You remove Walmart and look how fast pedestrians numbers drops. I am rarely in the mall these days based on the direction it has gone as well what it offer. You will find me more in Walmart, but not as much as before as it's not worth buying there these days.

The whole mall needs to come down.

 

[Big Daddy]

To be honest, I'm quite disappointed the city didn't protect the woodlot this project will destroy. There is plenty of unused parking lot around this sprawling mall that should be used long before we desecrate this little woodlot.

 

[Midtown Urbanist]

To be honest, I'm quite disappointed the city didn't protect the woodlot this project will destroy. There is plenty of unused parking lot around this sprawling mall that should be used long before we desecrate this little woodlot.

I've been wondering about this aspect, especially as there are comparable woodlots over by STC. Is that woodlot consisting of native trees or invasive species? Are they in good or declining health?

 

[interchange42]

I've been wondering about this aspect, especially as there are comparable woodlots over by STC. Is that woodlot consisting of native trees or invasive species? Are they in good or declining health?

The Square One woodlot is more like scrub, while the Scarborough Town Centre one is a rather beautiful forest, much higher quality of tree cover, enough that area residents have rallied to save it more than once—way back when two condos were supposed to go in at the northwest corner of Ellesmere and McCowan, and then more recently when the TTC planned to take a couple acres of it for the Bloor Danforth subway extension. The first campaign resulted in the land becoming a park, the second in a rerouting of the subway plan. In Mississauga though, that patch of ground, while green, doesn't have a forest canopy per se, and never became a cause célèbre for the locals.

42

 

[zacbar]

You are saying the age of Walmart is past its useful life cycle, then you are saying the original mall is also past its useful life cycle since were built at the same time. Do you know a 3rd floor can be added to Walmart as it was design for from day one??

Except the majority of the mall has seen significant improvements to both the finishes and the mechanical aspects, to a much greater extent than Walmart. In fact most "big box" stores are built with the intentions of lasting only 20-30 years. I realize this particular Walmart may be a different story as it's a mall anchor.

 

[innsertnamehere]

Except the majority of the mall has seen significant improvements to both the finishes and the mechanical aspects, to a much greater extent than Walmart. In fact most "big box" stores are built with the intentions of lasting only 20-30 years. I realize this particular Walmart may be a different story as it's a mall anchor.

This is a bit of a miconception. Big box stores are usually designed to be "paid off' in 20-30 years, not that the buildings are designed to be physically torn down in that time frame. Having the mortgage gone gives landlords room to improve their properties though, which encourages some form of modication to the site.

In fact, many wal-mart locations have 99 year leases on them. We saw this in Vaughan where SmartCentres had to do some pretty extreme things (build Wal-mart a new location at no cost, move their own headquarters, get an Ministers Zoning Order) just to be able to develop a strip plaza they owned. Wal-Mart clearly didn't plan on leaving that location for a long time, even though the location is already about 25 years old.

 

[ericmacm]

I threw some quick mockups of the planned office buildings along the 403 into my model to see how they'll scale with the surroundings. If the current designs are not just placeholders, the finished towers will range from ~90 to ~110m in height. The two office complexes with twin buildings also appear to be structural clones of each other, just with different facades and differences in podium length. I'm guessing that most of the rest of this strip will be offices as well (who would put condos/apartments this close to the 403?), but I can't tell based on the renderings, so I left them out for now.

 

[Jasonzed]

^^^ the straight down view is cool

 

[drum118]

Except the majority of the mall has seen significant improvements to both the finishes and the mechanical aspects, to a much greater extent than Walmart. In fact most "big box" stores are built with the intentions of lasting only 20-30 years. I realize this particular Walmart may be a different story as it's a mall anchor.

I will say for a fact of 100% that the structural steel not only for Walmart, but the mall itself will last 75-100 years with no problems. Exterior and interior is a different story. The whole mall has been brought to the latest standards for fire control, mechanical and electrical. Even comply with AODA requirements, but need to be more for all the doors to the mall, not a section since they fail from time to time.

Walmart was Woolco that had a 50 year lease and that was extended when Walmart took over Woolco.

You need to find photos of what the mall look like when first built and the various changes since then. I have a fair number of interior shots going back to about 2006 and all the major redevelopment and expansion since then up on my site on Flickr and you will see where various mechanical rooms where over the corridors and relocated to a full height view including skylight.

 

[jje1000]

To be honest, I'm quite disappointed the city didn't protect the woodlot this project will destroy. There is plenty of unused parking lot around this sprawling mall that should be used long before we desecrate this little woodlot.

IMO, one of the minor sins of the Mississauga Downtown masterplan is the lack of a large urban park, maybe something a bit smaller than the Boston Commons- but still large enough to feel like an temporary escape, and large enough to hold some level of programming.

Most Ontario cities lack large, downtown-adjacent urban parks, in fact. Kitchener has Victoria Park (which is nice), but it's still a bit too small.

 

[Jasonzed]

IMO, one of the minor sins of the Mississauga Downtown masterplan is the lack of a large urban park, maybe something a bit smaller than the Boston Commons- but still large enough to feel like an temporary escape, and large enough to hold some level of programming.

Most Ontario cities lack large, downtown-adjacent urban parks, in fact. Kitchener has Victoria Park (which is nice), but it's still a bit too small.

The closest MCC will have is the park behind LAC -> Parkside Village -> Zontas Meadows

park behind LAC ->

 

[innsertnamehere]

There are quite a few large parks right on the edge of MCC - Kariya Park, John Bud Cleary Park, and Zonta Meadows.

 

[jje1000]

There are quite a few large parks right on the edge of MCC - Kariya Park, John Bud Cleary Park, and Zonta Meadows.

Yes, but none of those parks are large enough to feel like their own entities and define the urban grid- rather, they feel like the residual spaces in between developments- and like the parks around Parkside Village and the LAC- are fragmented to some degree by roadways.

Would have been great if Kariya Park was fully expanded to cover the entire block around Fairview Public School and Burnamthorpe, but that's off the table now; same with Zonta Meadows being expanded to Confederation Parkway.

 

[Jasonzed]

Yes, but none of those parks are large enough to feel like their own entities and define the urban grid- rather, they feel like the residual spaces in between developments- and like the parks around Parkside Village and the LAC- are fragmented to some degree by roadways.

Would have been great if Kariya Park was fully expanded to cover the entire block around Fairview Public School and Burnamthorpe, but that's off the table now; same with Zonta Meadows being expanded to Confederation Parkway.

Here is another perspective. Maybe they can use the back of LAC as a giant movie screen

 

[Jasonzed]

The muffin guy told me that if or when Sheridan becomes a university they will be buying or leasing the land or a building from Oxford so they can expand their MCC campus. That portion of the parking lot is reserved for Sheridan students Mon-Fri from 8-6pm. Stay tuned.