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HomeMy WebLinkAbout74-59REPORT N0,3 RETAIL POTENTIAL ANALYSIS I have read Mr. Layng's report attached hereto, and I concur with his recommendations subject to the following modifications: lA Rather than asking each applicant to undertake his own market study, each applicant for a major shopping centre should be required to con- tribute in advance to the cost of the proposed retail potential ana- lysis when the appropriate time comes to consider that aspect of the District Plan (le, when future population distributions have been determined), There is no point in each shopping; centre applicant carrying out his own partisan study using different methods and no doubt, coming to different conclusions. That would only add to the confusion of the situation and would probably not serve the Town's purposes very well. The municipality has already established a policy that where consultant's reports are required in the processing of any application, the consultant is retained by the Town at the applicants expense. I see no reason to treat the shopping centre applications we are presently receiving any differently in this regard, 2. The Shopping Habit Survey recommended by Mr. Layng would provide very useful input into the overall of a type which is often not included in such market studies. I recommend that it should be done as soon as possible while we have student assistance available on staff and should include a survey of shopping habits within the municipality as well as expenditures outside the Town's boundaries. hespect.fully submitted, "' ,;'George Fa Howden, Planning Director, Report #3 to the Members of the Planning Advisory Committee Town of Newcastle from: JOHN LAYNG, Planning Consultant July 16, 1974 RE: RETAIL POTENTIAL ANALYSIS This Report results from the listing of local, existing material available for an analysis of potential retail sales as directed by the Planning Advisory Committee on June 24th, 1974, in response to applications for eight shopping centres in the Town of Newcastle. This material is identified with the following sources: OAPADS: COJPB: Official Plan of the Oshawa Planning Area; four Official Plan texts of the four former municipalities of the Town of Newcastle; Ministry of Treasury, Economics and Intergovernmental Affairs, Report on Shopping Centre Decisions, Bowmanville Retail Commercial Area Study, Simpson Avenue 6 King Street proposal critique by COJPB; Durham Mall proposal; and Bowbrook Square proposal. THE OSHA14A AREA PLANNING AND DEVELOPMENT STUDY (OAPADS) commissioned several reports by a consortium of planning consultants. From 10 reports seen, the following 4 have an application as background material for general population and economic projections in this area: (1) Final Appraisal, March 1969 6 May 1970 Bowmanville, Darlington, Clarke Economic Base Component III• -4. (2) Appendix to Final Appraasal Economic Base Component, March 1969 Items El to E39. 2. (3) A Discussion of Development of Regional Government Population and Economic Growth Population Projects 11-7 - May 1970 (4) Preliminary Evaluation of Development, August 1970 Population and Economic Growth The Central Ontario Joint Planning Board (COJPB) in March, 1972 published a RETAIL AND PERSONAL SERVICE INVENTORY OF SHOPPING CENTRES AND STRIP DEVELOPMENTS in the Central Ontario Joint Planning Area. The component municipalities of the COJPA were: Oshawa, Bowmanville, Whitby, East Whitby and Darlington. Besides an Introduction, Source 8 Methods, Classification of Types of Business, and Definitions, this Report has the following comparative tables which apply to the former Town of Bowmanville and Township of Darlington: 1. Total Retail & Personal Service Floor Area Space 1A. Retail Floor Space by Municipality 1B. Personal Service Floor Space by Municipality 2. Ratios of Retail & Personal Service Floor Space to Pop. 3. Summary Statistics - Retail 8 Personal Service 6. Vacant Stores by Municipality 7. Summary Statistics - Strip Retail Areas 8. Floor Space by Strip Retail Area 11. BOWMANVILLE: Retail 8 Personal Service Establishments 12. DARLINGTON: Retail 8 Personal Service Establishments 14. Number of Retail 6 Personal Service Establishments by Municipality and Functional Classification 15. Commercial Inventory Functional Classification This Report has also Figure 1, a Map showing Retail 8 Personal Floor Space by Basic Planning Units for the whole of the COJPA; and Figure 2, a Map showing each vacant store throughout the COJPA. 3. This COJPB report and inventory is useful because it is recent and because it goes into considerable detail about the greater part of the commercial retail outlets of the Town of Newcastle. It is not a complete retail potential analysis. THE OFFICIAL PLAN OF THE OSHAWA PLANNING AREA includes, on pages 11 to 18, inclusive, and on page 26, a comprehensive statement on the definitions, analysis and planning policies for the commercial structure of Oshawa. This is a relevant document for the Town of Newcastle in that it establishes commercial growth policies which effect the whole Region of Durham, and beyond, before demand. Destructive competition is prevented, in Oshawa, by the requirement of a market feasability study for each proposed commercial development in relation to the market support required for existing commercial areas. This protection should now extend to other parts of the Regional Municipality of Durham. The 4 OFFICIAL PLAN TEXTS of the 4 former municipalities of The Town of Newcastle each noted the status of retail trade, and each had policy statements for commercial development. The Village of Newcastle and the Town of Bowmanville were the most specific in stating the projected requirements of retail acreage and floor space. Bowmanville amplified its general policy by stating, page 16, 5(a), the intention that the Central Area continue to be the dominant commercial area of the Town. 0 4. The Ministry of Treasury, Economics and Intergovernmental Affairs published in 1971 and 1973 a REPORT ON SHOPPING CENTRE DECISIONS: EVALUATION GUIDES by Robert W. McCabe, a planning consultant who has had considerable experience in retail location. This Report is currently applicable as a source for definitions, the impact of suburban shopping centres on the CBD, conflicts, risks and methods of trade area analysis. It is not specific enough to be a complete reference for conducting a thorough retail potential analysis, but, it does have a considerable bibliography on the subject; and it can be used to interpret and evaluate material submitted in support of proposed retail development. THE RETAIL COMMERCIAL AREA STUDY, now being carried out in the Central Business District (CBD) of Bowmanville by Robert Greno and John Simpson, as part of their summer work for the Planning Advisory Committee, is accumulating and recording information on population projections, retail floor areas, types of merchandising, parking facilities, building conditions, land use, office space, employment totals, owner - tenant ratios, length of occupancy, and CBD merchants' opinions on retail problems in Bowmanville. Some of this material will parallel, but not repeat, the COJPB inventory in 1972. It will be most valuable in being current, in using different means of measurement, in extending the items for analysis and in comparing actual to projected population growth. It can be used in any Retail Potential Analysis as a required inventory. 5. PROPOSED SHOPPING CENTRE, SIMPSON AVENUE AND KING STREET, BOWMANVILLE by D. M. Consultants Ltd., presented to the Bowmanville Planning Board on June 13, 1973, was the subject of a commissioned critique by the COJPB staff in August, 1973. The major questions and reservations on the Report of the developer's consultant were: excessive gross leasable floor area; damaging competition to the Central Business District- inaccurate designation of primary and secondary trade areas; over - optimistic population projections, unrealistic income levels; overestimated expenditure projections; and grossly exaggerated market potential. This critique by the COJPB staff is an example of the necessity to probe shopping centre proposals thoroughly to offset the promotional enthusiasm which disregards the impact on existing retail stores in this Municipality. Western Auto Parts Limited submitted a report by I. F. MaeNaughton, Planning; Consultants, dated September 21, 1973 to the Planning Board, of the then Town of Bowmanville presenting proposals for a community shopping facility called DURHAM MALL. The site would be between the Base Lane Road and Highway 401, east of Waverley Road. The shopping centre growth would be proportioned to the population growth of the Bowmanville area and have as its initial major tennant a food supermarket. This Report is not a retail potential analysis in any mathematical sense, but a studied observation of present conditions and restrictions and of future possibilities. 6. It does not provide any new specific data which would assist the Municipality in a decision for the approval of any shopping centre at any location in the Town of Newcastle. Geoffrey Still Associates, a division of A. E. LePage Ltd., Realtor, presented on October 10, 1973 to the Bowmanville Planning Board a proposal for a shopping centre west of the Waverley Road between the Base Line Road and Highway 401 on 34 acres of the lands of the Brookdale.•Kingsway Nurseries. A revised presentation dated Play, 1974 calls this proposed shopping centre BOWBROOK SQUARE. The Market Study for the Potential Retail Commercial Development was prepared by Henry W. Joseph, Director of Research on Planning for Geoffrey Still Associates. This is a serious market study using: trade area population forecasts to 1986, estimated sales potential from income levels and retail expenditures in the trade area, division of retail expenditures into 7 categories of merchandise, and the resultant estimated gross leasable floor areas. It cannot be entirely accurate because it assumes some unknown data. Table 8 of the report lists the market shares of department store merchandise (DSTM) to the Boxmlanville Central Business District (CBD), to Oshawa, and to the proposed shopping centre site. (40:24:36). These are estimated proportions and, since they are critical, should be verified and extended to Food Store Expenditures. This information is vital not 7. only to Bowmanville but to all the surrounding hamlets and villages in the Town of Newcastle whose stores must be kept operative as an essential service to local customers. CONCLUSIONS: In recognition of the facts that neither this Municipality nor the Regional Municipality of Durham has progressed very far in the District Plan and the Official Plan, and from the foregoing items of information investigated to measure the extent of a RETAIL POTENTIAL ANALYSIS needed for the Town of Newcastle it must be concluded that a complete analysis now would be premature. All the elements of land use, transportation systems, population growth, housing policies, industrial growth, etc. besides market factors have to be considered and decided upon before accurate recommendations could be made or supported on the place and size of any shopping centre. For a current evaluation of shopping centre proposals, the single significant calculation is the proportion (possibly 500) of the total retail expenditures lost by the Town of Newcastle to the City of Oshawa. The developers claim that this loss is the major reason for a new shopping centre in Bowmanville and that the benefits of capturing a substantial portion of this lost trade would minimize the negative impact of a new shopping centre on the central business district (CBD). This statement would be more valid if the true impact could be calculated. It may be advisable to conduct, or to have conducted before the end of August, a shopping habit survey, at about 500 households to find out the actual proportion and kinds of expenditures within and outside of the Municipality. The other fact to be considered is that if a proposed shopping centre were not large enough to have a reputable department store of some size, and other units; to complement rather than to compete with the CBD on Kind; Street, then such a shopping centre would not benefit the people of the Town of Newcastle. The danger of a centre large enough to provide these qualifications is, of course, that it would likely equal in gross leasable area that of the present CBD, and be detrimental to the upgrading of the CBD. In each case the applicant for a new shopping centre should be required to submit a serious market study based upon criteria established by the tunicipality, so that he will realize the actual prospects rather than speculate, and so that the municipality can compare such studies with its own position. By the end of 1974, more data on the District Plan, including the extent and locations of HOUSING ACTION, will be available, and at that time it should be evident what kind of RETAIL POTENTIAL ANALYSIS should be done. The Fork Program of the District Official Plan stated that a commercial land need study would be made in the final Phase V of the Program. 91 R E C O M M E N D A T I O N S; (1) IT IS RECOMMENDED THAT any general Retail Potential Analysis be deferred until the District Plan is far enough advanced to provide essential data and to determine the extent of such analysis. (2) IT IS RECOMMENDFD THAT the final District Plan incorporate a comprehensive Retail Potential Analysis adequate to establish a policy for the appraisal of shopping centre proposals. (3) IT IS RECOMMENDED THAT each applicant for a shopping centre be required to submit a market study based upon criteria to be determined by the Municipality. (4) IT IS RECOMMENDED THAT a Shopping Habit Survey of about 500 households throughout the Town of Newcastle be considered to determine what proportion and kinds of retail expenditures are made outside of the Municipality. Respectfully submitted, JOHN LAYNG PLANYING CONSULTANT R.R. 1, ORONO 416- •786 - -2955