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Fairview Park Mall - Grand Market District
I noticed in the building permits that there is currently a permit to take out a majority of the dividing walls in the wing where The Childrens Place, Sunrise Records and Miniso were located. Perhaps another ‘larger’ tenant maybe hopefully something entertainment related.
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(04-15-2022, 07:57 AM)neonjoe Wrote: I noticed in the building permits that there is currently a permit to take out a majority of the dividing walls in the wing where The Childrens Place, Sunrise Records and Miniso were located. Perhaps another ‘larger’ tenant maybe hopefully something entertainment related.

It's going to be a furniture/bedding/household goods store of sorts. Can't remember the name of it.
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(06-05-2022, 06:11 PM)Cjeffster Wrote:
(04-15-2022, 07:57 AM)neonjoe Wrote: I noticed in the building permits that there is currently a permit to take out a majority of the dividing walls in the wing where The Childrens Place, Sunrise Records and Miniso were located. Perhaps another ‘larger’ tenant maybe hopefully something entertainment related.

It's going to be a furniture/bedding/household goods store of sorts. Can't remember the name of it.

I’d like to guess Crate & Barrel or Urban Barn, but I wonder if JYSK isn’t more likely.
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Linen Chest
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(06-06-2022, 09:09 PM)RLens Wrote: Linen Chest

Nice!
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Mark's and Sport Chek have moved into units in the old Sears space (their strip-mall locations on Fairway are now empty); alongside the RBC and Winners, that area is now full.
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I was hoping Cineplex would Open The Rec Room in the old Sears.
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I was taking a bus out of Fairview Station and noticed there is a fencing containing a construction trailer and a few (maybe 5-6) large metal cylinders by the fake rusty water tower along Fairway Road. I couldn't tell if it may be related to this project or not. They did have plans to build 3 buildings there - a 4 floor retail and office building (can't see them doing that now considering the office vacancies) and 2 standalone restaurants. However they probably wouldn't bring in piles before they've even excavated anything.

Has this stuff possibly just been sitting there a while? I've never taken notice.
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Also when I was just digging through old documents about this project to remember what they were planning to build here, I found this bit that annoyed me...

[Image: skKJR5M.png]

I think it's such a shame we lost the original facade of the Sears building. Locally it was quite iconic and everyone knew it, but it was also a rather large and grand example of 1960s modernist architecture that existed in Kitchener. City staff thought it wasn't meaningful and valuable enough because although it only needed to fit one criteria defined by the Ontario Heritage Act to be granted a heritage designation - and it did that - council wasn't having any of that and said there are "examples of the same building style in other nearby municipalities" which I think is a lame argument. That should not severely impact whether or not a building is worth preservation. You don't chuck away even the most common/abundant ancient Greek pottery or old arrowheads just because there are a lot of them and buildings should be the same considering the cultural meaning and value behind them. Not everything old is worth keeping, but I feel the Sears building ought to have been preserved just due to how unique it was for Kitchener to have.

Like I think many will agree the old theatre that currently sits where the QCondos is going to be is extremely beautiful inside and out and unique. But that too lost a heritage designation for similar reasons and arguments namely that it could not support a tower on top...well it may have actually been possible to (my architectural engineering side thinks it could have been) but the developer probably didn't want to spend that kind of money. A building that nice that exists within Waterloo Region - it doesn't matter if similar ones exist in other cities, I think - should have had heritage designation before Momentum decided to build an extremely generic skyscraper on top of it and only preserving the facade of the original building there. I guess the main problem is just how heritage preservation works in Ontario. Buildings - despite how often highly dedicated architectural design was put into them - are kind of seen as disposable objects, arbitrarily lacking the significance of other cultural relics, thus easily demolished and rebuilt. I guess that's a symptom of capitalism.

The Sears building is definitely a different sort of building than the one on Queen in that it fulfills a different role which makes heritage designation a more involved process as in attempting to decide whether a large retail building like that - which there are so many of across North America indeed - is worthy of preservation but I think as one of the last of its kinds in the region at the time (most malls had been renovated prior...and indeed, most were not architecturally unique enough to warrant a heritage designation) and having such a unique design with the rounded rectangular moulded stone panels and the original glazed dark green and black brick it was one of a kind across Waterloo Region. In the end Cadillac Fairview and whatever crappy architecture firm designed the extremely kitsch, tacky fake early 20th century industrial aesthetic that was inspired by the "industrial heritage of Kitchener" convinced City of Kitchener staff that the original architecture would clash with their corny interpretation of history. So city staff said nah...you can keep a tiny bit but if people in cars on Fairway see it they might not want to visit the mall. Now there is a giant red brick wall, a fake smokestack and fake rusty COR-TEN steel "water tower" that amusingly clashes with the design of the rest of the entire mall!

I think that if they wanted to go with a more silly industrial look then they should have redid the facade of the building Walmart occupies. And yeah I know Walmart did redesign it with giant walls of corrugated and flat blue metal, but CF could have wrapped that entire thing in corny red brick to match the fake factory look they were trying to go for along with the rest of the mall (sans Hudson's Bay) and then left the Sears building alone, having it appear from Fairway as a unique feature against a backdrop of...well...fake red brick old industrial buildings. That would have been an actual homage to the city's past and made drivers take note of such a feature. Maybe have some architects or artists design some nice metal sculptural pieces that could have been affixed to the Sears facade and maybe some new added windows, trees, pavement, benches, doors, lighting etc. The whole industrial "Grand Market District" thing is just going to look incredibly outdated within 25-30 years because it's obvious it isn't authentic, where the Sears (and arguably Hudson's Bay building too) would have been timeless pieces of actual history...heh...especially next to the lame design they are going with now. Rant over.
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I have said it before, but Kitchener is getting easily the worst planned/ designed Mall conversion in into mixed-use neighbourhood in the country. Which unfortunate, since Cadillac-Fairview has some experience redeveloping their mall portfolio's.
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Considering that the Grand Market District signs are down and that the renovated portion of the mall and water tower both have Fairview Park signage I would guess that the redevelopment has been put on hold indefinitely.
CF Fairview Park does seem to be getting a footing with some more tenants after the pandemic but there still seems to be about 10-15 vacant or short term leased units in the mall despite the Sears repurposing.
There has also been an open building permit for a new pad restaurant on the property open for the last couple of years. Maybe this is getting started soon.
CF may have more success if they started with the residential component of the Grand Market District on the Kingsway Dr side of the property rather than the Office and Retail towards the front.
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(09-05-2023, 08:41 AM)neonjoe Wrote: Considering that the Grand Market District signs are down and that the renovated portion of the mall and water tower both have Fairview Park signage I would guess that the redevelopment has been put on hold indefinitely.
CF Fairview Park does seem to be getting a footing with some more tenants after the pandemic but there still seems to be about 10-15 vacant or short term leased units in the mall despite the Sears repurposing.
There has also been an open building permit for a new pad restaurant on the property open for the last couple of years. Maybe this is getting started soon.
CF may have more success if they started with the residential component of the Grand Market District on the Kingsway Dr side of the property rather than the Office and Retail towards the front.

I have to agree with this. Starting with the tower components on Kingsway would bring in more people and also close a portion of the mall meaning tenants in that area could move in and occupy vacant units elsewhere in the mall as well. 

It seems like it would just be a win win on every level. Like you said, not like CF doesn’t have experience with this type of thing.
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It appears the equipment I spotted is for an expansion on the old Sears building. The plans show a restaurant there. They've got some piles driven into the ground now.
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Yes, they've been working on the west side where the Sears loading docks had been.
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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?
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