St. Laurent Shopping Centre
 

An application has been submitted to change the IL (Light Industrial) zones and the GM24 (General Mixed Use) zone of these properties to a new GM zone to permit expansion of the St. Laurent Shopping Centre up to 125,000 square meters

Looks like a Simons store (Québec City Based) would be added (northwest corner) to an almost doubled St.Laurent Shopping Centre...

http://app01.ottawa.ca/postingplans/appDetails.jsf?lang=en&appId=__7OTIRU

There is only one good place for Simons and it's in the abandoned two 4 storey building near Rideau Centre.

Betcha it is Simons. The site plan has an 70 or 80,000 sq ft department store on one level. That’s too big for an H&M, but quite similar in size to many of Simons’ stores in Quebec.

I agree that the Rideau Street location is better but if there is one at St.Laurent, we will take it...

Looks like it is a Simons according to this link:
http://webcast.ottawa.ca/plan/All_Image%..._Transportation_Study_D02-02-09-0054.PDF

You'd think they'd build a Simons in Gatineau before Ottawa, but I suppose they would have studied such a proposition beforehand and concluded St-Laurent would be a better location.

I guess Les Ailes de la mode did the same thing with Bayshore.

Anglos == more money. They thought that Les Ailes would work in Bayshore. That's why I find it more appropriate for a Simons to be downtown, you have all the QC folks, plus the trendier people of the market.

I agree, it would have been fantastic for downtown (in the location you described).

Indeed... It would have been fantastic. The stretch between the Rideau Centre and King Edward could afford something new... other than Tattoo parlors... A Simons store would have brought a couple of other stores for sure... Let's hope that the Rideau Centre potential expansion will do just that.

I guess that means they'll be demolishing the old Sears. Too bad, I kind of like that building, built in a time when the anchor stores were uniquely designed to have a distinct character. Originally the Eaton's it has a bit of Japanese style in it especially in the entrances with the shoji-like glazing. I think the horizontal strips imbedded in the brick used to light up.

I remember when the Bay used to be where the foodcourt area is now. it was also a cool building, one storey with a great big dome in the centre. The mall then was a simple "dumbell" design, but I guess since the mall opened at the same time as Expo67, it had some quirky characteristics that rubbed off from the world's fair. The sweeping central roof is still evidence to this, but I wonder how long it will be until they take that down and put a second storey throughout the mall.

Though I agree it's almost certainly them, I can't find in the document where it says it is Simons.

Here's the concept plan:

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2633/3773250537_c13a209f52_o_d.jpg


http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2459/3774061590_1a30318aa3_o_d.jpg

There were rumours in Gatineau that the Métro supermarket at Les Promenades de l'Outaouais that closed last year would become a Simons, perhaps with a second floor added on top of the 30 000 sq ft on the ground floor.

In the end, the former supermarket became a huge (for this type of chain at least) Urban Planet store that just opened this spring.

I think Simons is on somewhat safer ground at St. Laurent than Les Ailes de la Mode was at Bayshore. The company probably does not feel that way, but east end Ottawa is still a bigger gamble than Gatineau would have been - they're a well-known name across Quebec and tons of people from Quebec City live in Gatineau. Whereas in Ottawa they have to make their name, even among most Franco-Ontarians. Plus, the chain has one store per 200,000 people in the Quebec City region, and a store in Sherbrooke which is a city of 185,000 people. The urban Outaouais has close to 300,000 people (and a higher per capita income than Qc City and Sherbrooke), so it would surely be able to support this kind of store by itself.

Not sure either if the "Quebec pride" factor will hurt them. Les Ailes thought people from Gatineau (most of whom already knew the brand) would flock to their Bayshore store, and make up for the fact that Ottawans needed a bit of time to get to know the store. That didn't happen, and I overheard many people in Gatineau say that they refused to go to Les Ailes because a well-known Quebec chain had snubbed Gatineau in favour of Ottawa.

Simons is probably on safer ground at St. Laurent though, which is a much more popular more shopping destination for Gatineau residents than Bayshore is. Though it's not a good a choice as Rideau, as others here have mentioned.

Anyway, if the St. Laurent store turns out to be a success, it is quite possible that some other Simons stores will eventually pop up in the region, likely at Bayshore and in Gatineau and maybe Rideau.

Aren't they going to have a parking problem?

Downtown would have been better of course, but I am sure St. Laurent gave them a much better deal than Rideau Centre would have.

Don't mean this as a diss but people aren't as obsessed with parking issues as they used to be. Most shopping centres in North America have hugely overbuilt parking lots, that are maybe completely full only one day a year like the last Saturday before Christmas.

St. Laurent has excellent transit connections, and also owns land I believe across Coventry Rd. near the Perkins restaurant that it can use for surface parking or even a new multi-level parking structure.

For shopping centres in increasingly urbanized areas like St. Laurent's area, too huge surface parking lots are a waste of potential money from new, valuable retail space. So you build up part of the parking lot with stores and then replace the eliminated spots with multi-level garages that take up less space on the ground.

Do you live downtown? There's a parking problem already at Rideau Centre and the Byward market. St. Laurent has massive amounts of surface parking. If they put in a building where the current surface parking is, no biggie, they'll just move the parking underground of the new building.

As you can see from the site plan, they are already accounting for that space by relocating Coventry Road entirely. I hope they are paying for this, not taxpayers. Parking will be a nightmare on that site, considering they are taking out the multi-level garage currently behind Sears, and proposing to build over the other two in the future

The portion of Coventry near the corner of St. Laurent Blvd. and Perkins appears to be remaining intact. Where the big changes are is in the area where there is that odd curve in the road and a sort of no man’s land towards the west, and then where the other curve is that goes towards the baseball stadium.

It also looks as though the mall’s footprint is expanding west towards the vacant land where the Cirque du Soleil had their big top last year, not too far from Elections Canada.

Bottom line is that people in North America are way too hung up on parking. If you’re living a largish, dense city, you’re not always going to be able to park right in front of the door of your every destination.

I am a lefty but if there is one thing I know that big businesses won’t do is shoot themselves in the foot. Morguard wouldn’t do this if there was any risk at all that more than enough customers to make the expanded mall viable could not have easy access to it.

I think in terms of personal preference a self contained store in the downtown area would be ideal, but St. Laurent isn't a terrible location either. It's probably the next best in Ottawa. It's close enough that Orleans residents will be able to get to it. It's not completely out of the way for Gatineau residents and many Ottawans know the Simons brand from Montreal. I just wonder how well the department store, mall model will work in the future.

Most Ottawans have most likely been to the stand-alone Simons in downtown Montréal. However, Simons also has other stores in the Montréal area, which are contained in malls and seem to do just fine, including the stores at Promenades Saint-Bruno in Saint-Bruno on the South Shore and the one at Carrefour Laval.

Also, keep in mind that for the most part, Simons is more moderately priced and affordable than Les Ailes de la Mode, which may also play a role in it's success.