Proposal for Kitchener mall calls for two office buildings totalling more than 250,000 square feet

An ambitious new development project aims to transform Kitchener’s Fairview Park mall.

Based around the existing mall and repurposing the empty Sears store, the plans for the proposed Grand Market District call for at least two new office buildings, along with additional retail space and a multi-level parking structure.

Four new residential towers along Kingsway Drive are also shown in the site plans presented by real estate services firm Colliers International, but no other details about the residential component were available.

“I think we’re seeing in the region a level of momentum that is quite exciting in terms of economic growth, in terms of job growth, and this just further adds to that,” said Kitchener Mayor Berry Vrbanovic.

The project outline lists mall owner Cadillac Fairview, Colliers International, architecture and design firm Petroff and development consulting services provider Roy Higgs International as team members.

The two new office buildings will be designed with “brick and beam esthetics,” with exposed, 11-foot ceilings and floor-to-ceiling windows. In the artist’s renderings, the buildings appear designed to emulate old industrial buildings that have been reimagined.

The east building is expected to rise five storeys and include 200,655 square feet of space. The smaller, four-storey west building is planned with almost 66,000 square feet of space. The site plan indicates both buildings would be constructed along Fairway Road on land currently occupied by surface parking.

“Shop, eat, play — Grand Market District is a true one-stop destination for the Kitchener-Waterloo area,” a description from Colliers reads. “Grand Market District’s traditional brick and cobblestone streets and lanes are a historic reference to southern Ontario’s rich examples of Victorian-era industrial architecture.”

The project touts new and existing entertainment and dining options, from cafés and dine-in restaurants to specialty boutique grocers. Cadillac Fairview also owns the property across Fairway Road that includes a Cineplex Cinemas and a planned Indigo store.

Aside from the presentation package posted to the Colliers website, Cadillac Fairview was not providing additional details about the project.

“We are currently in the planning stages of an exciting mixed-used development which will complement our existing shopping centre,” spokesperson Anna Ng said in a statement. “Marketing of the project is underway and we look forward to sharing updates as plans progress.”

The project outline states the site will boast more than 3,800 parking spots, both in surface and underground lots and in the new structure located between the former Sears store and the Highway 8 ramps. The first phase of the region’s new light rail transit system has a terminus at the Fairview Park property; a second planned phase that would run to Cambridge would start at Fairview Park.

“The LRT is one of the major impetuses for the project,” said regional Coun. Tom Galloway. “It’s another example of how the LRT is doing its job incenting this kind of development.”

Galloway said he and other regional and city officials have met with Cadillac Fairview representatives to discuss the plans. “They’ll use (LRT) as a marketing piece for current and future tenants to drive more traffic to their property.”

Vrbanovic called the project another vote of confidence in the decision to construct the LRT system, and underscores the benefits it brings beyond the downtown cores.

Kitchener Coun. John Gazzola, whose ward includes the mall, tweeted his congratulations to Cadillac Fairview. “Thank you for your continued & additional investment in our community,” he wrote.

Changing consumer trends are prompting shopping malls across North America to reinvent themselves, with owners contending with ever-increasing online retail options and the shuttering of large chains like Sears and Target in Canada.

A 2014 report from management consulting firm McKinsey & Company said the most innovative malls today don’t resemble their predecessors. “It is critical that malls be about much more than stores,” the report said. “Mixed used developments offer consumers an attractive, integrated community in which to live, work and shop.”

Vrbanovic said he was thrilled that Cadillac Fairview has selected Fairview Park as a site for what he termed “their new model of intensification” for shopping plazas. “It just shows you that things are changing, particularly in the retail marketplace.”

Fairview Park mall, the region’s largest, celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2016, and has undergone a handful of significant renovations and expansions since then. The closing of one of its anchor stores, Sears, in January, left the mall with 140,000 square feet of vacant retail space.

The Sears store actually predated the opening of the mall by a year. Its ribbed, pre-cast concrete construction is cited as a unique example of the International Modern architectural style; while it is not protected by a heritage designation, it is listed on the city’s heritage register, meaning a heritage impact assessment would need to be conducted for a proposed development or alteration.

Vrbanovic said he expects it could be five to 10 years before the entire project, including the residential component, is complete. “It really brings this property … into the 21st century.”