A retail mall in the city’s south end described by its owners as old and tired could be the site of a massive residential redevelopment effort.

“Any major residential development efforts for Shoppers World Brampton are not in the near term, but are part of RioCan’s longer-term vision for the property and the community,” said property manager Penny Karas, referencing a recent media interview with Ed Sonshine, chief executive officer of RioCan REIT, where he lays out plans to scale back the retail footprint by more than half its current size to 300,000 square feet, and include 1,500 residential units, mostly rental, at a projected cost of $150 million.

In that Globe and Mail interview, Shoppers World, built in the early 1970s, was described as a broken down, old mall that RioCan executives “aren’t sure what to do with.” In 2012, RioCan added 80,000 sq. ft. of retail space as part of a major revamp project.

Mall representatives downplayed the pace at which the project is moving, stating the mall is about to welcome new tenants GoodLife Fitness and JYSK by early 2018. However, the prospect of an overhaul of a prime piece of real estate in the heart of Brampton has ignited talk about development potential for the area.

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“There is no question that Brampton needs more affordable rental units, so the proposal for 1,500 rental units on the Shopper’s World Brampton site would certainly address that to some extent,” said Coun. Jeff Bowman, who also talked about the city’s Hurontario-Steeles Mobility Hub Master Plan Study, and how any redevelopment of the property “should include a large, modern mobility hub.”

At the height of the contentious light rail transit (LRT) debate, Mayor Linda Jeffrey and senior planners warned opponents that stopping the line at Steeles and Hurontario would shift growth away from the downtown and sink the city’s revitalization plans for the Four Corners area.

More than a year after council denied Jeffrey the transformative vote, opting instead to stop the HMLRT line short of the downtown, and rejecting hundreds of millions of provincial dollars in the process, the mayor's predictions of “a new city centre” are beginning to take shape as talk of an overhaul of Shoppers World picks up steam.

Council turned down the province’s preferred route through the downtown along Main Street, at a huge political cost to the mayor who went hard on the offensive to try and overturn a previous council decision to prevent the LRT line moving through the city’s heritage district.

While that battle unfolded, RioCan filed a pre-application with the city in April 2015 and set forth redevelopment plans that could, as Jeffrey predicted, “shift growth away from the Four Corners to Steeles and Hurontario or wherever else the line stops.”

“In the context of planning for Light Rail Transit to Steeles Avenue, city staff have recently been involved in discussions with RioCan regarding the development opportunities for the Shoppers World site,” a city spokesperson responded in an email, adding that work is currently being done on a tertiary plan for the Shoppers World Brampton site, “undertaken concurrently with the City’s Hurontario-Steeles Mobility Hub Master Plan Study.”