While crowds of people are expected to flock to the new Central at Garden City shopping centre when it opens on Thursday, at least three Richmondites are highly unlikely to darken the doorstep of Walmart, the mall’s anchor tenant.
The retail giant — along with Marshalls and several other stores at the 372,000-square-feet outdoor mall on Garden City Road and Alderbridge Way — will open its doors on Thursday morning to the delight of many local shoppers.
However, now that the paint is about to dry on the shopping centre, a trio of Richmond environmentalists who, for years, vehemently opposed the West Cambie development for varying reasons, won’t be caught in the crush for any door-crashers on opening day.
And, at least two of the three — school teacher Michael Wolfe, Coun. Harold Steves and long-time community activist Jim Wright — aren’t laying all of the blame for the “blot on the landscape” at the feet of the developer (SmartCentres) or Walmart.
“SmartCentres told everyone they wanted to be a good neighbour and all that stuff, but not once did my parents (who live in the same block) receive any kind of information or notification,” said Wolfe, who will stage his own one-man protest outside the new shopping centre on Thursday afternoon, urging everyone to “shop local” and steer clear of Walmart.
“The neighbourhood was sold down the river; it’s gone, completely eroded. Now there are fires in vacant properties and squatters; people sold to developers and speculators and moved away, no one wanted to live near a Walmart.”
Wolfe said, after spending more than three decades living in the West Cambie neighbourhood, he watched SmartCentres “bullying my community to death.”
In reference to the loss of designated environmentally sensitive land to the development, Wolfe said the area used to be full of mature trees and is now covered by a shopping centre or townhouses.
“There has been no environmental compensation whatsoever (from the development),” he added.
Before planning permission for the centre was given by the City of Richmond in 2013, hundreds of people packed city hall for a public hearing, mostly to voice their opposition.
At the time, Steves’ opposition to the project centred around what he classed as the development’s unsuitability for the city’s West Cambie Area Plan. Now, he questions, among other things, the absence of promised plantations along the buffer to Garden City Lands.
“I ain’t goin’; Walmart isn’t my cup of tea,” quipped Steves of Central at Garden City’s unofficial opening day.
“I asked for native plants and trees (such as crab apple) along Alderbridge; apparently they couldn’t find them. And there was supposed to be a trail system running through there, but I don’t think that’s there.
“So, it’s just as I expected; it’s just as bad as what was planned.”
Steves said Richmond’s newest shopping centre and the “monstrosity down at Tsawwassen” — in reference to the recently-opened Tsawwassen Mills — have sent the region “back to the ‘50s.”
“(Central at Garden City) is about a kilometre from the Canada Line, it’s not exactly progress.”
One of the many bones of contention back in the day for Wright, past president of the Garden City Lands Conservation Society, was the visual impact of the development on the viewscape looking north from the adjacent Garden City Lands.
“I think the impact is what I expected. Obviously, I didn’t know exactly what to expect or what it was going to look like,” said Wright.
“But it wasn’t just about Walmart, it was the whole development, a combination of everything in there.
“People living in the city centre should be able to see the northbound viewscape. The greenspace on Garden City Lands, the (former) mixed urban forest and the mountains, all in the one view, was unique in the world. Now it’s gone.”
Wright said he was never opposed to Walmart, as such, or the rest of the tenants. “I don’t even think it was their fault or that of the developer, I think it was the City of Richmond (for allowing the development to take place in the first place).”
A number of the mall’s 53 tenants are expected to open for business on Thursday, including Marshalls and Walmart, although SmartCentres was unable to say how many.
The rest of the stores are expected to open gradually as the weeks and months roll on, with an official mall grand opening not anticipated until next year, when all the tenants are open.
Marshalls grand opening is at 8:30 a.m. on Thursday.
An estimated 975 jobs — about 240 at Walmart alone, which accounts for half the centre’s retail space — will be created as a result of the development.
In the lead up to the mall’s opening, the intersection of Alderbridge Way and Garden City Road has been upgraded to include larger, designated left-turn lanes to help move traffic in and around the area more efficiently.
