Photo credit: Eastgate Square
On Tuesday, March 8, Toronto-based firm Harrison Equity Partners, in collaboration with Retail Ventures CND Inc., announced a plan to turn Hamilton’s Eastgate Square Mall into a mixed-use hub that will include residential development in addition to retail.
The company said that Eastgate will be “reimagined and redesigned”, as well as “accessible and affordable.”
The area’s location near LRT and GO Service is seen as a large reason why residential development at Eastgate makes sense.
Eastgate Square is already a major HSR transit hub and will also be the easternmost stop of Hamilton’s incoming LRT line connecting Eastgate to McMaster University. Eastgate Square is also close to the Confederation GO Transit station located at Centennial Parkway and the QEW. Confederation GO is expected to receive two-way GO train service to Toronto in the coming years.
Not much is known about the preliminary plans for the site, although there is currently a lot of empty space at the former Sears location in the southern part of the mall. Details are mostly speculative at this point, as there is no specific proposal or timeline yet. What is known is that there are plans for new retail services and “numerous and varied housing options.”
Hinting at potential new retail options, Harrison Equity Partners said, “The proposed redevelopment will maintain its market-leading position by adding a focused array of existing and new shops and services to cater to the local community’s daily needs with a focus on healthcare, wellness, pet care and similar core services inside a re-imagined and re-designed complex.”
The full masterplan for the redevelopment is expected to be made public sometime in 2023.
“We are very pleased to be leading the redevelopment of Eastgate Square,” said CEO and founder of Harrison Equity Partners Mark H. Newman in a statement. “We believe that with a careful appreciation of the local community’s needs we can make Eastgate Square the kind of special place where people will come to live, work, shop and be together.”
Eastgate currently hosts Fortinos, Shoppers Drug Mart, Winners, Sportchek, Dollarama, LCBO, The Beer Store, and several smaller stores. It is expected that those retail locations would remain as-is with development concentrated to the south and southwest portions of the site (the former Sears and surrounding parking lot).
The developers say that they plan to turn the site “into the first new community of its kind in Hamilton.”
Based in Hamilton, he reaches hundreds of thousands of people monthly on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter. He has been published in The Hamilton Spectator, Stoney Creek News, and Bay Observer. He has also been a segment host with Cable 14 Hamilton. In 2017, he received the Chancellor Full Tuition Scholarship from the University of Ottawa (BA, 2022). He has also received the Governor General’s Academic Medal. He formerly worked in a non-partisan role on Parliament Hill in Ottawa.
