{"id":23658,"date":"2019-04-26T14:56:01","date_gmt":"2019-04-26T18:56:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=23658"},"modified":"2019-04-26T14:56:10","modified_gmt":"2019-04-26T18:56:10","slug":"retail-set-to-make-a-comeback-at-former-canadian-tire-site","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/retail-set-to-make-a-comeback-at-former-canadian-tire-site\/","title":{"rendered":"Retail set to make a comeback at former Canadian Tire site"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n


\nCanadian Tire may have moved from Yonge Street to Bayview Avenue, but the\ncompany is looking to re-invest in its old site and bring new retail\nopportunities to Aurora\u2019s south end.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Canadian Tire\u2019s\nformer store on Yonge Street just south of Murray Drive has stood vacant since\nits move in 2016 and the company has applied to Council for new zoning\nprovisions that would open the door to a series of changes on-site, including a\nreconfiguration in parking and the construction of a new drive-thru restaurant\nat the Yonge Street side of the property.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If their plans are\nbrought to fruition, the present building will be divided into three commercial\nunits with a new loading dock.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCurrently, the\nproperty has very restrictive zoning on it which is just to permit a Canadian\nTire-type store with some ancillary restaurant-type uses,\u201d said David Waters,\nDirector of Planning & Development Services, for the Town of Aurora.\n\u201cHowever, in order to make the property more marketable at the end of the day,\nthe applicant has come in and expanded the range of uses for the property. They\ndo confirm with the Official Plan [and while] the Official Plan and York Region\nOfficial Plan do provide for higher order uses, at this point in time, the site\nis not ready to move in that direction, but those development rights are within\nthe plans for both the Region and the Town.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although all plans\nfor the property, which is no longer for sale by Canadian Tire, are subject to future\nsite plan approvals, Council is set to give the green light to zoning bylaw\namendment changes this week after giving the thumbs-up at the Committee level\nlast Tuesday night. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some Council members,\nhowever, expressed some misgivings on the proposal, particularly from\nCouncillors Wendy Gaertner and John Gallo who questioned whether the plan meets\nintensification targets, fulfils the vision of the Aurora Promenade Plan, and\nwhat impacts \u2013 negative or otherwise \u2013 the changes might have on homes on the west\nside of the property.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From the residents\u2019\nperspective, Councillor Gaertner said she had concerns about the noise the\nproposed drive-thru would create for area residents, along with the noise from\nloading zones. An additional concern, she said, was the current right-of-way at\nMosaics Avenue, which shares access to Murray Drive with the plaza to the\nnorth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On his part,\nCouncillor Gallo said he wanted more clarity on how the proposals conformed\nwith the Town\u2019s Official Plan and in particular the Aurora Promenade Plan which\nfocuses on building a pedestrian-oriented community through higher densities\nand placing midrise to high-rise built forms closer to the street, buffered by\nappropriate transitions, with parking in behind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI envisioned\nsomething different on the site, particularly when it comes to the Promenade\nstudy and all the work that was done,\u201d said Councillor Gallo. \u201cI just feel like\nwe\u2019re getting just more \u2018big box\u2019 and that doesn\u2019t sit too well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn its current\nstate, it is very restrictive and I would agree with that. Although my comfort\nlevel isn\u2019t very high, is there an opportunity to go through the site plan\nprocess prior to the rezoning of the properties so that my and perhaps others\u2019\nconfidence would be slightly higher if the commitment from the owners is to go\nthrough the site plan process prior to us doing the rezoning? I know it is not\ncommon, but it has definitely been done before.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mr. Waters responded\nthat Canadian Tire has decided to take a two-step approach with this plan,\ngoing for the rezoning first, followed by the site plan process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf I had a choice,\nthey would\u2026go through the site plan process prior to the rezoning of the\nproperty,\u201d said Councillor Gallo. \u201cI will sit and ponder that for the time\nbeing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Councillor Michael\nThompson, on the other hand, said the proposal from Canadian Tire is very much\nin line with what was there before as well as the uses of lands surrounding the\nsite, particularly the Smart Centre plaza just to the north, which is anchored\nby Winners.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt is hard to\ndistinguish between one property versus another,\u201d said Councillor Thompson. \u201cWhile\nI would agree there are a lot of us who thought this would be an excellent\nopportunity for other kinds of development, they did have the property for sale\nfor a period of time and were trying to perhaps move in that direction, there\nwere some other issues we might not be privy to, but at the end of the day that\nis what the applicant has come forward with.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While Councillor\nHarold Kim said he would welcome further dialogue with Canadian Tire to make\nsure what they want is in synch with what the Town envisions, Mayor Tom Mrakas\nsaid having something on site is better than leaving the lands vacant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt is better off\nthat something be there, be open, instead of it being vacant and empty,\u201d said\nMayor Mrakas. \u201cWe have complained many times about the Canadian Tire being\nvacant and empty, so I would rather see some stores in there available to the\nresidents in the area instead of being empty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think as we move forward, down the road more\npeople will look into the area and possibly look at picking up this property\nand maybe looking at changing its use at that time.\u201d<\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Canadian Tire may have moved from Yonge Street to Bayview Avenue, but the company is looking to re-invest in its old site and bring new retail opportunities to Aurora\u2019s south end.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23658","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-69A","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-15 09:29:00","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23658","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23658"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23658\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23658"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23658"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23658"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}