The public had its first look this week at plans for a new neighbourhood with apartment buildings, a lifestyle mall, restaurants, grocery store and hotel to be located just south of the Enjoy Centre.
Reisa Schwartzman with Cape Construction presented the proposal for the 13.5-acre, mixed-use site in South Riel at an open house Monday. The development will be called Bellevue Village.
“It’s a live-work-play community,” she said. “It’s new to St. Albert and I think that it will be a really great contribution to St. Albert.”
Cape Construction, a Vancouver-based developer, is a third-generation family business. The company specializes in a variety of projects, from commercial to residential and industrial.
Schwartzman said Bellevue is based on an urban village design, combining commercial and residential development to make a walkable community with all amenities near to where people live.
The lifestyle mall, for example, will offer residents the traditional function of a shopping centre with a variety of leisure amenities, such as restaurants and community services. But it will also have residences above the retail space, and be easily accessible for pedestrians.
She added that the developer is also building a private road. That means it will look after snow clearance and trash pick-up but it can build the road narrower than a city-owned road, and plan for parking on the sides.
“By keeping it a private road we will have more street parking,” she said.
Development of the entire site is expected to take about five years, pending demand and the economic situation in Alberta, said Schwartzman. Before anything can be built, though, the developer has to wait for the city to start construction of Project 9, which will expand sewer capacity in the area.
“We should start construction in 2016,” she said.
The first building to be developed will be one of two apartment buildings. The buildings will each offer 150 one and two-bedroom units. Rent is expected to be about $1,200 to $1,300 for a one-bedroom, and $1,500 to $1,700 for a two-bedroom. Schwartzman said that up to 600 people could live in the buildings one day.
The site does not have a school but there are plans for a daycare, she added. The apartments will also have underground parking for residents, and plenty more parking spaces near the shops and restaurants. The style of the buildings will be equal to the Enjoy Centre, with steel and concrete structures.
“Having a steel and concrete construction, it’s not cheap construction as you can appreciate, so it’s quality living,” she said.
She hopes that the restaurants and the hotel will get built shortly after the first apartment complex. Cape Construction has not announced the name of the hotel yet but it’s a brand “that you guys all recognize,” she said.
“And we want the restaurants to open as soon as we can,” she said, adding that people will also “know the brand.”
“We are really trying to create an inviting neighbourhood.”
