Issue link: http://digital.canadawide.com/i/177297
Highstreet 12-10-10 4:11 PM bbotsford, B.C., will soon see a new 600,000-squarefoot outdoor shopping centre, anchored by some of the largest and most popular retailers, as well as a multiplex cinema. The centre will open in January, with the entire mall scheduled to be up and running by June of 2013. This is Shape Properties' Highstreet, offering urban lifestyle shopping and entertainment in one of Greater Vancouver's fastest growing regions. With a site size of about 20 acres, Highstreet is ready to transform west Abbotsford into a destination for those in the vast, semi-rural surroundings of the western Fraser Valley. "We bought the property in 2008," says Darren Kwiatkowski, executive vice-president of Vancouver-based Shape Properties. "The B.C. government owned the lands, which were a combination of 10 acres of surplus lands and 10 acres of land created when they rebuilt the interchange in a more land-efficient manner. The result was that our acquisition of the 20 acres paid for the new interchange." The next step involved doing some research in the area. "We wanted to develop a strong relationship with the community and the tenants who would come to a new shopping centre," says Kwiatkowski. "We got a strong feel for what the demand was out there, and what people wanted to see in the area. Also, the site is unique. There are not a lot of similar sites along Highway 1 at a primary interchange that could have drawn the whole Fraser Valley to a new mall. But the Fraser Valley continues to grow and there really is a need for a retail space such as Highstreet." Bill Reid, partner with Vancouver architectural firm Musson Cattell Mackey Partnership, was architect for the project. He admits that a project of this size offers up its own set of challenges. After all, Reid was expected to design dozens of component shops, restaurant shells, theatres and public A renderings courtesy Musson Cattell Mackey Partnership by Jerry Eberts " Highstreet p68-71Highstreet.indd 69 Retail design is evolving, the indoor shopping centres are less popular. Today, village-style malls are becoming the norm." Bill Reid, partner Musson Cattell Mackey Partnership spaces, as well as the space for more than 1,800 parking stalls (more than 1,400 in the structured parking area and 400-plus on the open-air podium level). At the same time, all these disparate parts needed to be synthesized into a whole. "Our design intent was to have differentiation in the appearance of the buildings," says Reid. "We wanted some to be contemporary and some to be more traditional. We made a deliberate effort to make the shops, large and small, look different, compared with the old style of building a mall where all the shops looked the same. We wanted to create something pleasant and interesting." To achieve this goal, Reid says they "utilized a common language of design and materials, particularly accent materials – brick, stone, metal panels and wood – in contemporary styling." Musson Cattell Mackey has been involved in the project since 2007, before the location had even been secured. The architectural firm had worked with Shape Properties previously in a smaller shopping centre in Abbotsford and some individual buildings on Vancouver Island. december 2012 /69 11/16/12 3:39 PM