Kamloops Real Estate Blog

This article appeared in the Kamloops Daily News on November 15th, 2011.

Over the past two decades, Westsyde residents watched with melancholy resignation as stores closed at their mall and buildings fell into disrepair.

On Tuesday evening they greeted Overwaitea Food Group’s plans for redevelopment of Westsyde Mall with cheers and clapping. The company unveiled plans to a meeting of about 150 enthusiastic residents gathered at the Hamlets at Westsyde, who are clamouring for new life in the tired mall.

Tom Munro, vice-president of real estate and store development with Overwaitea Food Group, told the meeting the firm expects to start with demolition and construction in April next year. The existing store will be temporarily cut in half to allow shopping to continue while rebuilding on the same footprint is underway.

Refurbishment of Cooper’s Foods is at the heart of the project. Overwaitea Food Group purchased the grocery chain developed in Kamloops more than a decade ago. The Westsyde location is the final Cooper’s Foods to be updated with a look now familiar at other stores.

The proposed redeveloped store is about 25,000 square feet, the same size as current location.

The company is also actively seeking other tenants for what today is a half-empty mall that hasn’t been updated for decades. “We’d love to have a Tim Hortons and we’re working on that,” Munro said to applause. Other targets are a pharmacy, McDonalds Restaurant or Dairy Queen. A bank or credit union will also be sought, but Munro added “it isn’t likely.”

Residents said they were glad to see the investment. “I’m happy,” declared Herb Tarzwell, who has lived in the community for 17 years. “The previous owners never really looked after it. They hadn’t done any maintenance. It will be nice.”

Steve Delaney, a director of the local residents’ association, said the redevelopment is long overdue. “I’ve been here since 1975 and it’s deteriorated ever since,” he said. “We had a bank, a drug store… but everything moved up top to Aberdeen.”

Another resident, Patty Messmer, called the current mall “pretty sad.” “This is a big community out here. If this (current mall) is what represents Westsyde, it’s pathetic.”

Current tenants include Cooper’s Foods, a government liquor store, Home Hardware outlet, a hair salon and Chinese food restaurant. A number of storefronts are empty.

While Messmer said she’s pleased to see the plans, she worries about some current businesses. Munro acknowledged some tenants don’t have leases and are operating month-to-month. “I hope they don’t get priced out,” she said.

Munro declined to place a cost on the redevelopment. The current mall is about 60,000 square feet and will eventually, through a number of phases, be redeveloped to about the same size.

Delaney said he hopes the upgraded mall and new tenants will keep more residents shopping at home. “If it’s only $4 more here, it’s still cheaper to pay it than to drive into the city to get it.”

Purchase of the mall by the company comes after it failed to get an agreement on a nearby piece of land owned by Ron Cooper, whose family started Cooper’s Foods. Cooper and the company remain business partners at other locations.

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This article appeared in the Kamloops This Week on November 17th, 2011 and was written by Jeremy Deutsch.

A little piece of Scotland will soon be coming to the Tournament Capital.

City council has unanimously approved a set of rezoning applications for a large residential development at the end of Bentall Drive in upper Aberdeen.

The developer, DA Taylor Holdings, is planning to turn a 34-hectare parcel of land into a 500- to 800-single and multi-family-unit development centred around a mixed-use commercial Scottish-themed neighbourhood village called Edinburgh Heights.

Though some residents at the public hearing on Tuesday night (Nov. 15) expressed concerns over traffic, parking and the types of commercial businesses being considered, council appeared enthusiastic about the project.

Mayor Peter Milobar said the development is much more comprehensive then what was first proposed a few years ago, adding concerns around traffic will be alleviated.

He said the development will be unique and offer a different product to the housing market in Kamloops.

“A bit of variety is always a good thing in the marketplace,” Milobar said.

Coun. Pat Wallace said she liked the densification of the project and the opportunity to have a “European mini-city” within Kamloops.

She is also confident the developer will resolve the traffic and parking issues to most residents’ satisfaction.

Jeremy Cooke, project director with DA Taylor Holdings, said the next step is to finish road work at the east end of Bentall Drive, which could begin in spring 2012, and complete the master plan for the property.

He noted the entire project could take 10 to 15 years to complete.

Cooke said the intention is to build a people-oriented community that not only has good looking buildings, but is also functional.

“It’s turning it into a village where people can actually live day-to-day,” he said.

“Kamloops needs something like this right now — a walking, living community.”

The developer had worked with the city for more than a year to have the project comply with Aberdeen Neighbourhood Plan.

In 2007, DA Taylor Holdings announced plans to develop a 400-acre parcel of land into Edinburgh Heights, which would resemble a village in the Scottish countryside.

The vision included pockets of houses dotting the hillside, separated by open plains, English-style lampposts, narrow, windy streets and low brick walls lining the sidewalks.

Council of the day was cool to the plan, in part due to concerns the project didn’t have enough high-density units.

The new plan adds more density to the development on the eastern benches of Bentall Drive, while scrapping what would have been two-acre parcels of land.

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