Land rush on the Highway

The much discussed shopping village on the BC Hydro site has once again caught the fancy of Podunkians, as the developers for the project, Royop Corporation attempt to secure even more land for their planned project.

Suggesting that there is great interest in the area, Royop is looking to pick up 25 more acres for their development of retail spaces and eateries to be located on the highway village site. A situation which will only cause more speculation as what name brand retailers might be inclined to set up shop at the end of Highway 16.

As for the slow pace of the construction phase, Royop says that if anything it’s the need for more land that is responsible for the lack of development on the site at the moment, preferring to increase the size of the project to reflect the suggested increased interest in the development.

This of course will send visions of Future Shops, Canadian Tires, Wal Marts, Boston Pizza’s and KFC’s dancing through the heads of the shopping and gastronomically starved Podunkians.

At any rate, for Podunk it’s at least until 2007 before the regular shopping treks to Terrace can begin to be cut back, the first phase of the development isn’t expected to be completed until mid part of next year.

The Daily News provides all the details except for the names of any potential tenants (still some kind of deep cover Royop secret it seems) in today’s paper.

MALL PROJECT SHOPPING FOR MORE ROOM TO GROW
By Leanne Ritchie
The Daily News
Friday, May 19, 2006
Page One

The Royop Corporation is forging ahead with the shopping village on Highway 16, and right now the company is busy trying to acquire more land.” The development business isn’t one of those businesses, where thing always go like you want them to,” said Melvin Foht, vice-president of development for the Royop Corporation.

“We’d like to acquire more land. If there’s anything holding things up, it’s the acquisition of more land.”

The land they are looking at is 25 acres owned by B. C. Hydro, he said.

In November, the city rezoned a 16-acre parcel in the area of the old B. C. Hydro building and amended the official community plan to allow for the development of what’s being described as a “shopping village,” including space for two major retailers and four or five smaller retailers. However, the company stressed this was just a conceptual presentation and there is flexibility within the plan.

Foht said there’s a decent amount of interest in the development and they need an area large enough for all the interested parties to locate.

While they had hoped to begin construction in the spring, Royop is currently busy with land acquisition.”

However, Royop officials have talked to a couple of local contractors and obtained preliminary figures on the cost of preparing the site to the point where buildings could be constructed.

The company has not issued an official tender for the work, just made some inquiries about prices.

Currently, the area is a combination of muskeg and marsh.

Royop has been developing retail shopping centres for 30 years, and not only focuses on large communities but on what they describe as small communities that are under-serviced in retail—like Prince Rupert.

The first businesses in the shopping development are slated to open around the same time as phase one of the container port, - mid-2007.

Foht described construction of the container port getting underway as “good news.”

Royop still isn’t tipping its hand about who the tenants could be, although speculation locally continues to be rampant.

“There’s solid interest in the development,” he said.

Foht is expected to be up in Prince Rupert two or three times this summer to do more preliminary work on the project.

Some of the businesses within the development are expected to want to own their property, so the city may see applications for further subdivision.

What happens to the Royop properties once they are developed varies. According to Royop’s web site, the company has developed properties and then sold them to private investors, Real Estate Investment Trusts, pension funds or continued to manage them.