(09-09-2023, 07:42 PM)tomh009 Wrote: It seems that the Grand Market is buried, with a stake through its heart. Maybe they were just using it as a pretext for tearing down the Sears building in the first place?
They would have put hundreds of thousands into the plan so I doubt that was the case. The Sears building wasn't heritage protected anyway, the issue only came up after their initial proposal but in the end the City of Kitchener council let the Ontario Teacher' Pension Plan do what they want with the property. And like with many things the very botched way we shut down the world for a couple years to try and stop the unstoppable resulted in an unprecedented global economic collapse, so Cadillac Fairview is likely in no rush to move forward with this right now.
I can also imagine them changing their plans now as well. The office space probably makes little sense now so I would guess they've put that on hold. Overall the property is in a very strategic spot so they probably don't want to rush it. If the Cambridge LRT line ever happens, that will turn the area into an even busier transit hub so they could drastically expand the retail options. Put as much parking underground too and then they could add a lot of residential towers not only along Kingsway as planned but near Fairway/the highway exits. It could be a pretty well done, high density mixed use area (though I question how the local roads could handle things..it's already so busy).