Omicron, developer of the controversial Sidney Gateway shopping centre, says it expects to break ground in early spring for the $35-million project on airport land at Beacon Avenue and the Patricia Bay Highway.
“It’s about a two-year project from shovel to ribbon cutting,” said Omicron vice-president Peter Loughlin. Planning began in late 2013.
Omicron announced the construction start after Sidney council voted 5-2 in favour of a zoning amendment that cleared the way for the development.
The vote early Tuesday followed a public hearing at the SHOAL Centre that began Monday evening. A majority of about 50 speakers were against the 98,000-square-foot centre, saying they fear it will hollow out Sidney’s business core and detract from the seaside town’s charm.
Loughlin said work on development permits will begin next week. Omicron expects permit applications — pending an infrastructure report from the B.C. Transportation and Infrastructure Ministry to confirm road access points — will be submitted to the Victoria Airport Authority for review by the end of the year.
“We’re obviously very pleased council has shown a level of trust that Omicron can deliver the product at the end of the day,” Loughlin said. The first phase of development will be construction of roads in April or May before site work begins, he said.
Councillors Barbara Fallot and Erin Bremner-Mitchell voted against the zoning change, while councillors Mervyn Lougher-Goodey, Tim Chad, Cam McLennan, Peter Wainwright, and Mayor Steve Price voted in favour.
Gateway is “car-centric” at a time when Sidney is reducing parking requirements for other new developments, Fallot said. She and Bremner-Mitchell said they would have preferred to work with residents of Sidney and North Saanich to seek better traffic patterns and a development that the community could buy into. The opposition voiced was not to development on the corner, but the Gateway proposal in particular, Bremner-Mitchell said.
A petition opposing Gateway signed by about 2,300 people is being vetted by town administrators, she said.
Loughlin said his company has a proven track record that includes Eagle Creek near Victoria General Hospital. Gateway will prove to be a boon for Sidney and the Saanich Peninsula, he said. “I see this as a catalyst for continued redevelopment that’s been taking place in Sidney over the past few years.”
The Gateway development will be on land leased from the Victoria Airport Authority.
Geoff Dickson, president and CEO of the airport authority, said it will take a few months for a regulatory review, which will be submitted to Sidney. “If all things go according to plan, Omicron should be in a position to begin construction in early 2017,” he said.
An accusation at the public hearing that Omicron will receive below-market rental rates is false, said airport authority vice-president James Bogusz.
About a third of the site could be used for a daycare and for a medical office affiliated with the Saanich Peninsula Hospital.
A memorandum of understanding between the Victoria Airport Authority, the Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure, Omicron, and the Town of Sidney states that a development permit will not be issued until Omicron guarantees through a bond that $5.5 million in amenities and conditions will be provided and the development will be built as agreed.
Omicron has offered amenities that include a $3-million pedestrian overpass at Beacon Avenue and the Patricia Bay Highway as a way to protect pedestrians from high-speed traffic and reconnect the two sides of town divided by the highway decades ago.
But Fallot said the overpass is “simply in the wrong place. … Does Sidney really benefit from an overpass a mere seven-minute walk away from an existing overpass while the north side is ignored?”
