03-13-2025, 09:54 PM
This is purely speculative but Smart Centre's appears to be gearing up to redevelop the entire Laurentian Centre.
Over the last couple of days they've drilled multiple boreholes and monitoring wells in and around the old Zellers/Target. Which is certainly the area most prime for redevelopment of some kind. In the summer they drilled a couple of monitoring wells in the Rona+ parking lot (their current lease still has another 5 or so years on it) so it certainly seems like something is brewing.
Another thing to keep in mind is Ottawa St was identified in ROPA 6 as a road intended for future BRT/LRT (along with the phase 2 route), with the province removing planning authority from the Region things change but for now the cities still have to use their own Official Plan and ROPA 6, the Region still acts as a commenting body so they can still say design for a BRT/LRT on Ottawa St even though they no longer have authority to approve anything. As new Official Plans are developed they'll incorporate ROPA 6, so it wouldn't be surprising if Kitchener 2051 includes the same wording surrounding Ottawa St so high density is certainly a possibility.
Over the last couple of days they've drilled multiple boreholes and monitoring wells in and around the old Zellers/Target. Which is certainly the area most prime for redevelopment of some kind. In the summer they drilled a couple of monitoring wells in the Rona+ parking lot (their current lease still has another 5 or so years on it) so it certainly seems like something is brewing.
Another thing to keep in mind is Ottawa St was identified in ROPA 6 as a road intended for future BRT/LRT (along with the phase 2 route), with the province removing planning authority from the Region things change but for now the cities still have to use their own Official Plan and ROPA 6, the Region still acts as a commenting body so they can still say design for a BRT/LRT on Ottawa St even though they no longer have authority to approve anything. As new Official Plans are developed they'll incorporate ROPA 6, so it wouldn't be surprising if Kitchener 2051 includes the same wording surrounding Ottawa St so high density is certainly a possibility.