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Food store/shopping centre part of proposed Nechako Corners residential development

Brink Properties Inc., will discuss project at Wednesday's city council meeting
Nechako Corners development
Brink Properties Inc., plans to build a 30,000 sq.ft. grocery store and shopping centre as part of its proposed Nechako Corners retail development near the intersection of North Nechako Road and Foothills Boulevard.

Residents of the North Nechako area in the northwest corner of Prince George’s bowl area could soon have their own neighbourhood grocery store, part of a proposed shopping centre/residential development.

If the proposed land use plan is approved for rezoning by city council and passes the public hearing process, Nechako Corners at Foothills Boulevard and North Nechako Road will be the future site of a 30,000 square-foot supermarket.

As the architect of the proposed Brink Properties Inc. development, project manager David McWalter says the retail part of the project will be an upscale shopping centre of a type the city now lacks.

“When you stand at the corner there’s nothing within five kilometres,” said McWalter. “There used to be a gas station at Fifteenth and Foothills, no longer there, and the closest would be the Hart or Spruceland, about six kilometres.

“The vision there is not just another strip mall. It’s a 10-acre property and it will be modern shopping centre and it will incorporate residential. We’re looking for a full-size food store and we’re talking with two very prominent food store names.”

The other commercial buildings will have retail space on the main floor with one or two floors of  residential space built on top. McWalter said not one of the proposed buildings will extend beyond three storeys and there is no gas station in the plan, which would attract more traffic.

“We’ve had inquiries from a yoga studio and lots of inquiries from cold beer and wine stores, who see that as a great location at a busy intersection,” said McWalter.

Brink Properties mailed about 500 notices of the proposal to residents of the Nechako Bench area and in the neighbouring subdivisions that extend to the west end of North Nechako Road.

“Given the extent of the mailouts, we were pleasantly surprised there wasn’t too many people objecting to the shopping centre,” said McWalter.

The final phase of the residential component would extend south to the Nechako Rivers Greenway adjacent to Nechako Riverside Park and would include single-family homes and medium-density strata development. The subdivision would be built beyond the outfield fences of Nechako Ball Park and would incorporate a greenbelt around Edgewood Elementary School.

Brink Properties has already built the Nechako View housing development in the area and is now building the Nechako Terrace neighbourhood, part of the North Nechako Plan approved by council in 2019.

If the plan for the grocery store is approved, McWalter said it will take at least until the end of 2024 for it to be finished.

“Contingent on approval by the new city council, if we get an early approval, we could be doing design this winter with construction of the shopping centre, the first phase, in the spring,” said McWalter. “It will take half a year to build the infrastructure, the roads, water, sewer and municipal utilities, and the actual shopping centre itself will take at least another year.”

McWalter says there’s been a noticeable shift in what types of housing people want and are able to buy and that is shaping the city’s construction industry trends.

“Ten years ago there were 10 single lots for every apartment unit built, now you get 10 apartment units for every single-family lot, it’s just changing demographics, younger people are looking for affordable housing,” he said. “It’s quite the shift. The old tradition of everyone having a single-family home on a  quarter-acre is not so affordable these days. To build a new lot these days costs about $200,000. That’s buying the land, doing all the clearing, grading, construction of utilities, and it takes a long time.”

In the company’s 10-year plan, Brink Properties is committed to building one million square feet of  warehouse space in Prince George, the equivalent of 10 Costco buildings. McWalter said the team working on that project has a 66,000 sq.ft. pre-engineered warehouse now under construction.

Nechako Corners will be one of the agenda items city council will discuss at the public meeting Wednesday at city hall, which starts at 6 p.m..