Highway 16 Shopping village, still more speculation than substance!

The Daily News provided something of a pulp version of a Seinfeld episode in its Friday edition, a story pretty well much about nothing.

The latest is that nothing is really happening yet at the proposed Shopping Mecca on the highway, well nothing in the form of a construction phase at any rate.

Instead the project is more akin to a game of Monopoly at the moment, as the developers at Royop have been busy buying up more and more land, ready to expand the shopping destination to come.

Buying land, working on a revision to their website and denying rumours, so far that’s the extent of things on the Highway. The denial phase came with a bit of mystery on their website regarding that always soon to come here chain Canadian Tire. The project developers felt the need to deny the participation of the chain in the project so far, the Daily following things up with an interview with a Canadian Tire official who said they haven’t any tangible plans to come to Rupert yet.

The project still apparently is on track, as far as development goes, just not anything of a visual nature to excite the locals about the soon to come bounty of shopping and eating options.

The article did however leave the reader with visions of a fast food bounty to come, dancing off the pages.

Full details are provided below, be sure to wipe your face after your meal!

SPECULATION RIFE AS MALL PROJECT GROWS
By Leanne Ritchie
The Daily News
Friday, August 4, 2006
Page One

Despite information posted on Royop’s web site, the development company cannot yet confirm that Canadian Tire will be one of the retailers in the new shopping village development on Highway 16.

“I really can’t say>” said Melvin Foht, vice president of development for the Royop Corporation. “That web page, sometimes marketing guys get a little enthusiastic and jump the gun so I really can’t comment on what’s on that web page.”

The Royop web page had posted information on the 16-acre development, including a 4.6 acre site for Canadian Tire.

However, Foht explained that information is no longer current because the company has acquired an additional nine acres of land and is in the process of redesigning the now 25 acre development.

“A lot of people are interested in what’s happening and not happening on the site,” he said.

”One of the reasons it’s not moving forward this summer is we originally acquired 16 acres and we are expanding that to the full 25 acres where B. C. Hydro’s building is now,” he said.

“By doing that, we have to apply for land use on the additional nine acres, we have to do a new traffic study which is underway and we have to look at the whole development in light of it being 25 acres, not 16 acres. That’s causing us to go through the process again.”

Royop will have to appear again before council for rezoning on the nine acres, something they hope to do before the end of the year.

“We are keeping the mayor and staff informed,” he said.

The development is expected to include large national retailers as well as smaller shops.

“Prince Rupert is a place we identified a few years ago as somewhere we’d like to do some business in or develop in and we still feel that way,” he said.

Despite having retailers in both Smithers and Terrace, Canadian Tire wouldn’t confirm its interest in the new development in Prince Rupert.

Were Canadian Tire to establish itself here, Canadian Tire corporate headquarters would likely buy the land and build the facility and then find a dealer to operate the store, said a Canadian Tire spokesperson.

“At this time, we have no confirmed plans to open a store,” said Maeve Burke. “It doesn’t mean we wouldn’t, but right now we aren’t. Until everything is final, we wouldn’t want to get people’s hopes up.”

Royop is marketing Prince Rupert as the location of B. C.’s second container port.

“This container port is set to bring in workers from all over Canada and add to Prince Rupert’s economy. This is a great opportunity for retailers and restaurants due to Prince Rupert’s forecast for high growth.” Read the company’s web site.

Since the announcement of the construction of the Fairview Container Terminal, a number of national chains have begun advertising for franchise opportunities in the community. These have included Quizno’s, A & W and Dairy Queen. Even KFC, when it ‘kicked the bucket’ locally in 2004, said it was looking at opening one of its combination franchises of KFC, Taco Bell and Pizza Hut in the future.