A request for rezoning was presented to Strathroy-Caradoc’s municipal council on 17 June, for lots contained within the Strathroy Crossings development at the south end of Strathroy. The 4.8 hectare area is hemmed in by Carroll Street East and Saxton Road.
The plan for the site’s development has gone through some changes since the original, as trends in the marketplace change and dictate new uses of the space. The current plan proposes nine buildings in three separate blocks of space. Block A, located closest to the LCBO and Dollarama locations, is to proposed to contain four buildings which will house 5 retail stores, 2 restaurants, 1 office or support office use and a financial institution.
Block B, which is across the driveway from Block A and kitty-corner to Canadian Tire, is being proposed to have 2 restaurants and a band shell.
Block C, farther along Saxton Road on the north end of the site and beside Walmart, is proposed to contain a set of three commercial buildings to be set up as medical clinics and offices.
The proposal also includes 419 parking spaces. The proposal intends for available municipal water and sanitary services to be extended into each of the proposed commercial blocks.
The south-end development has remained largely empty of the “big box” stores that were originally planned for the site. In specific the 2012 rezoning to highway commercial called for large format retail with a minimum floor area of 464.5 square metres, 5 retail stores with a minimum of 88 square metres in floor area and a financial institutional with a minimum floor area of 371.6 square metres.
Consultant Laverne Kirkness says the taste for these big box stores has decreased in the age of internet shopping. Instead, the new site plan for Strathroy Crossings represents a “community of small commercial ventures.” As such, the application seeks to add small scale clinics, professional offices, support offices as well as a private park use as additional permitted uses to the subject land.
Kirkness said the development would represent the largest commercial node in the region.
There are a number of steps for the developer to complete before the site plan is approved, but if all goes to well, Kirkness said the schedule is for the roads to be constructed in the fall of 2019, with these three blocks of development completed and units leased by 2021.