Airdrie City council endorsed changes to the master site plan for the Kingsview Market, June 7.
Council approved the original plan for Kingsview Market, a 30-acre commercial development on Yankee Valley Boulevard and Kingsview Boulevard, in 2005. The new plan includes a pedestrian-friendly commercial centre with two large, L-shaped, multi-family residential buildings and street-oriented development.
City staff originally requested residential housing, with retail space on the ground level of buildings and condo-style apartments on the upper floors. However, Melcor Developments Limited, the owner and developer of the land, was not comfortable committing to that model.
“We are quite excited to get this started and I can assure you this is Melcor’s best foot forward in terms of a commercial site,” said Melcor’s Graeme Melton.
“However, we have never built anything of this detail and at this point in time, we can’t provide a commitment to vertically integrated buildings. We are proposing two fully residential buildings with one that has the potential to become a live/work building with spaces on the ground floor rented out to retail shops in the future.”
Melton said the building would allow Melcor to create a pedestrian-friendly area that meets the City’s density requirements, while allowing the company to construct a building it knows it can build with confidence.
“We want to see a successful site and we know we can provide what we have proposed here,” he said.
Mayor Linda Bruce said the idea was to have residential living in a commercial area so the location of the residential units is irrelevant.
“Certainly, vertical integration was what we had in mind but this still integrates the two. What I like about what we have today is that it is a huge improvement from what we started with. I’m really, really excited by the changes and I think it is a better plan overall.”
Alderman Marlene Weaver agreed.
“One of the visions council had was to get people into commercial areas so they could walk, live, play and shop in the same area,” she said.
“The logical way was to have them live on top of businesses but this still allows people to live where they shop.”
However, Alderman Shawn Howard was sceptical.
“On one hand, it is easy to build one type of structure in every community but you need to consider what is right for each community,” he said. “I am happy to see how far this has come and I think it still respects the spirit of what we were trying to do in the area.”
The site will include 150 residential units with the opportunity to build out to 375 units over time. One building will include commercial or retail uses on the bottom and office space on the tops floors. Services provided in the buildings will range from medical offices and restaurants to small-scale retail, coffee shops and hair salons. Two businesses have been confirmed for phase one of the development – Shoppers Drug Mart and RBC Bank.
Fifteen acres or 25 per cent of the site is dedicated to pedestrian-oriented shopping. The pedestrian zone will include wide sidewalks, public seating areas, outdoor patios, angled parking and landscaping.
