2 Responses

1. Geoff

   03|Sep|2008 1

   I like all of the above suggestions. I’ve always thought that Cloverdale had a lot more potential than its current state would suggest. However, what about the Cloverdale mall? How does this large piece of land figure in your ideas for the town centre?

2. Paul Hillsdon

   05|Sep|2008 2

   Cloverdale definitely has a lot of potential. It was, after all, the original centre of Surrey. Furthermore, with the regional attraction of the Rodeo, there’s a lot of potential to develop tourism as a new economic base for the community. I know they’ve been trying for a while, and things have been going slowly, but we really need to leverage the Fairgrounds and the whole historic aspect much more than we currently are. I think if we bring back a rail transit connection to the town centre, this will dramatically stimulate the tourism economy much more.

   One difficult aspect of improving the downtown core however is attempting to retain and strengthen the historical aspect of the area. Downtown Cloverdale is increasingly being chosen for it’s look in movie productions and that’s not something we would want to destroy.

   The key to a livable downtown area is more residential population within proximity to the area. However, at the same time, considering downtown buildings are only two/three stories high, we would have to be careful about development surrounding the area potentially affecting viewpoints and angles in movie productions. Unfortunately that leaves us in kind of a pickle without the capacity to densify the core required to make a bustling area.

   The Safeway lot is a huge factor into this, especially considering it’s large area and it’s location. I have hesitated from imagining the space as I’m waiting to see what the City announces will be developed on the land. According to the City’s website, they sold the land late December of last year, and were supposed to inform citizens of the plans back then. We are now almost a year later and there’s been no such announcement. I expect that we’ll hear something from the Mayor before the elections, though if it’s not the best usage of the area, I will definitely post my proposal for the lot.

   As far as I know, the plan was for a ton of townhouse residential, along with some commercial space, a large public plaza, and a potential hotel (though I think that was relocated to the Fairgrounds). Generally speaking, the plan as described above I would definitely support, although I would like to see the residential buildings be multi-storey, mixed-use apartments/condos with commercial below. I believe it would fit better with the historical buildings already in the area and mesh well with the current facades. As dense as we can get with townhomes, I think apartments/condos would allow us to fit at least a few more people in. Although, of course, a mix of housing options is always a good policy - we want to bring in families too!

   Thanks for the comment Geoff!