OVERVIEW
Between 2003-2008, CAGP designed three RONA Home centres on Vancouver Island for the same client with the largest, a 70,000 sf. facility located at Cowichan Commons Shopping Centre in north Duncan, B.C. A corporate re-structuring of RONA caused the Duncan facility to close and be put up for sale in 2017. After purchasing the 2 storey, steel-frame building and fully-developed 6.2A site in the fall of 2019, Prime One Realty Corp. approached CAGP to look at re-purposing the building for smaller format retail and a possible movie theatre complex. This process was underway in spring 2020 when the Covid-19 pandemic caused retail development options to disappear. As Prime One’s primary business is commercial ‘self-storage’, the option emerged to redevelop the existing building with new 2 storey construction infill for storage lockers with open floor and site areas for ‘mobile storage’ containers. The original retail development had a requirement for 280+ parking spaces while commercial storage warehouse requirement is only 60 spaces. Site area becomes available for new CRU development with options now being studied for retail, fast food and a potential car wash facility. As of spring, 2021, the proposed storage facility is in for both DP and BP permit applications with the owner currently negotiating lease agreements for redevelopment of the remaining site.
