Newmarket Upper Canada Mall Redevelopment | ?m | 20s | Oxford Properties | RAW Design

[Northern Light]

Park and POPS need a complete rethink to create 1-2 large parks instead of scattered postmarks. @Northern Light your favourite gripe

Building around the existing mall without putting that huge set of lowrise buildings in play really burdens the planning process on this site.

That said, not only is the principle park space too small, its poorly sited.

Someone will doubtless say they wanted a landmark space akin to a town square, to which I would retort, idea does not play when sited next to a 7-lane road, crossed by another major arterial.

Park should be shifted to the west end of the site, along Davis, to retain some visibility, and be enlarged with an offsetting reduction in POPS.

Like this:

 

[innsertnamehere]

"lets fix the project by quadrupling the parkland dedication area and demolishing Oxford's core asset on the lands which prints it money every year"

lets file that one in the total fantasy folder beside "Flying pigs", can we.

I agree the corner park isn't great, but Oxford simply isn't going to demolish UCM any time soon. Consolidating the two parks into one is likely a good idea, but you aren't going to suddenly get 3-4x as much parkland dedication here.

 

[Northern Light]

"lets fix the project by quadrupling the parkland dedication area and demolishing Oxford's core asset on the lands which prints it money every year"

lets file that one in the total fantasy folder beside flying pigs.

Not a helpful comment at all.

What I laid out did not decrease the developable footprint or GFA at all in phase one. It consolidated non-built on POPS and the existing Park.

Any phase 2 parkland dedication is obviously based on additional redevelopment occurring. To the extent that the total parkspace would exceed any statutory allocation Newmarket could pay the requisite price for that portion.

The asset that throws off money is not the mall as it is; its the retail GFA and its ability to draw customers.

I did not propose reducing that in any way, I simply suggest it be reconfigured, which it can be; and make far more money in the process..

Not my first rodeo; I don't do fantasy.