it makes no financial sense to demolish your only cash flow positive assets to turn them into two more bank of montreal sites for the next decade that are less aesthetic, less compatible with their neighbours and less customer convenient than maintaining the status quo on an interim basis.
 
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I've mentioned it before a few months back and I'll reiterate it once again. I actually agree with @IanO that demolishing the former HBC and building a couple of condo towers would be a very smart way of injecting more residents into the core while getting rid of a behemoth eyesore downtown. ECC will never again be any sort of respectable retail destination, especially with the competitors in the suburbs. The reasons why ECC will never become a competitive retail mall again have been discussed ad nauseam. These temporary pop up shops are a sad attempt at throwing stuff at the wall and seeing what sticks.

The owners of ECC are really in a crappy position. Demolishing one of the only sources of cash flow at this time is short sighted. I could see this becoming feasible or worth even talking about if ECC reinvented itself and phase 1 became a huge success. But we're not even close to that.

My two cents is this: Demo the former HBC, get a couple of high-rises built. The remainder of the mall gets gutted and becomes an entertainment hub with business like a Rec Room, Starbucks reserve open into the late night; maybe have a small concert hall where stand up comedians can perform in front of an intimate but lively crowd, open the exterior up for cafes and restaurants to have patios in the summer months etc. I'm spitballing here.

Yeah, this would all cost a pretty penny. And would be an huge gamble. But at this point, if they don't get creative or bold with any ideas, ECC will continue to be a money pit and one of the biggest eyesores in all of downtown.
 
They should demolish both The Bay and the NW parkade. I really have no idea why there's this intense debate over demolishing a parkade when ECC already has a crapload of parkades and parking stalls to choose from. The lower mall spaces with the 2 food courts were converted to parkade space about 10 years ago.

Once The Bay and the NW parkade are demolished, replace with 2 highrise mixed-use towers with underground parkades and street-level retail, cafes, pubs and a food hall. The northern tower can be an expansion of the Delta Hotel. If they can retain the Landmark Theatre space then that will be great, although an IMAX theatre would be a bonus!
 
archited said:
Never say never.
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I am not surprised by that. I have noticed that some have limited imaginations and can't picture any improvement to the recent past or present situation. As was pointed out earlier, already around half a dozen retail spaces have been recently filled here and no, most are not meant to be seasonal.

I think there are a lot of grand ideas here, of course by those that don't have to pay for them, but the problem is the bigger the change, the higher the cost also. So I suspect at least for a while this will remain mostly as it is.

The best strategy would be to take what is there, work with it and try to improve it, maybe open it up to the street a bit more, split up the Bay space into smaller spaces and so on. Some of the grander ideas may eventually make financial sense, but that could be in 10 years or more.
 
Gronk! said:
They should demolish both The Bay and the NW parkade. I really have no idea why there's this intense debate over demolishing a parkade when ECC already has a crapload of parkades and parking stalls to choose from. The lower mall spaces with the 2 food courts were converted to parkade space about 10 years ago.

Once The Bay and the NW parkade are demolished, replace with 2 highrise mixed-use towers with underground parkades and street-level retail, cafes, pubs and a food hall. The northern tower can be an expansion of the Delta Hotel. If they can retain the Landmark Theatre space then that will be great, although an IMAX theatre would be a bonus!
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I like this concept.
 
IanO said:
The play here is to demo The Bay, add two rental towers, perhaps a smaller 'active living' tower and open up the ground floor with some smaller complimentary retail.
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I agree with this being the play and I think I'd emphasize a focus on senior living, perhaps borrowing from the relatively successful model that Meadowlark has implemented. If you put up two high rises with a focus on seniors as demographics continue to age, and then fill most of the mall with medical services that have strong margins and make good tenants, you'd create a walkable seniors paradise with access to the rest of the city in a few years via LRT.

I see that a lot of emphasis is being put on rec rooms and food halls but I just don't see that in the future for ECC. Ice district nearby is better able to serve those needs as an entertainment hub. My two cents.
 
MisterSartorial said:
I agree with this being the play and I think I'd emphasize a focus on senior living, perhaps borrowing from the relatively successful model that Meadowlark has implemented. If you put up two high rises with a focus on seniors as demographics continue to age, and then fill most of the mall with medical services that have strong margins and make good tenants, you'd create a walkable seniors paradise with access to the rest of the city in a few years via LRT.

I see that a lot of emphasis is being put on rec rooms and food halls but I just don't see that in the future for ECC. Ice district nearby is better able to serve those needs as an entertainment hub. My two cents.
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I do feel like with the demographics trends and our need for seniors housing, being connected to transit and malls for safe, walkable, weather proofed living is sort of a perfect combo.
 
archited said:
Money, money, money... forget aesthetics, forget neighborhood compatibility, forget customer convenience, forget everything except "how much money am I losing"
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Realistically, any reasonably responsible businesses owner will always be thinking about their assets with these lenses.

It's easy to spitball ideas when you don't have to foot the bill, and that's pretty much what you are doing. If they were to follow your proposal, these guys would have anywhere between 50 and 200 million dollars shortfall to make up for, between lost revenue and maintenance costs, and that is IF the market conditions allow for the development to be profitable and start recouping the costs immediately after construction is finished.

LaSalle and their investors are businesses, and as much as they might want to engage in the betterment of the city, their main goal will always be to make the most money possible out of the assets they own. Within these parameters, their best play would be to demolish and redevelop the HBC space, as it was already pointed out. It would stop the bleeding on the current maintenance costs, which could itself finance the redevelopment, and become a profitable asset much sooner.

But again, if you are confident that you have the best solution, I suggest you approach LaSalle and bring in the $200m financing to back it up, assuming all of the risks. I'm sure they'd be thrilled to follow your vision.
But then again, last I heard, your capital raising efforts were pretty much unsuccessful, do there's that.
 
Why demolish anything?

A lot of the comments on here… besides the asinine pissing bs that should all be reported, could be ripped right from the 70’s.

Tear it down with a promise of something better in the future. Well I hate to break it to some of you but that brighter future has been illegal gravel parking lots for… 50 years now.

We need to find uses for the spaces. Roller Rink, Bowling Alley, A multi floor night club… the last thing we need are for calls to tear down perfectly fine functioning space. You know what is worse than an underperforming empty ECC? Another illegal parking gravel lot.
 
Yeggy said:
Why demolish anything?

A lot of the comments on here… besides the asinine pissing bs that should all be reported, could be ripped right from the 70’s.

Tear it down with a promise of something better in the future. Well I hate to break it to some of you but that brighter future has been illegal gravel parking lots for… 50 years now.

We need to find uses for the spaces. Roller Rink, Bowling Alley, A multi floor night club… the last thing we need are for calls to tear down perfectly fine functioning space. You know what is worse than an underperforming empty ECC? Another illegal parking gravel lot.
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I mean, do we really need those parkades? The mall could be retrofitted potentially, but the parkades gotta go.
 
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