The completion this year of the new HighStreet shopping complex overlooking Highway 1 at Mount Lehman Road in Abbotsford is proving to be a model for communities in B.C. and Alberta with its compact form.
"There just isn't the developable land, even if you're in Abbotsford," said Darren Kwiatkowski, executive vice-president of Vancouver-based Shape Properties Corp.
The final form is a cross of the village-style centres seen at Larco's Park Royal South in West Vancouver and the stacked forms featuring under-store parking pioneered by Ikea at its Coquitlam outlet and Walmart at its Grandview Corners location in South Surrey - developed by Kwiatkowski's former employer SmartCentres.
It's not the cheapest way to build a shopping centre, Kwiatkowski concedes, but it does save on land costs.
"For 600,000 square feet at traditional suburban densities, it requires 60 acres; this is built on 20 acres," he said. "We think it's a game-changing development."
The approach has attracted the attention of Calgary planners, who want to see similar projects as that city struggles to contain itself.
Municipalities in the Lower Mainland are also taking note, and Kwiatkowski expects lessons from HighStreet to come in handy as Shape pursues the redevelopment of Burnaby's Brentwood shopping centre.
Plans call for 1.5 million square feet of development at Brentwood, up from 500,000 today, with residential towers of about 60 storeys. Construction will take three years and will occur around existing and incoming users of the property.
- Peter Mitham/BIV
From the Western Investor, August 2013
