More condo development could be coming to City Centre in Mississauga

A plan to allow more space for residential buildings in the core of Mississauga recently got approval.

City Centre property near Square One Shopping Centre, currently occupied by retail shops, surface parking lots and Cineplex Cinemas Mississauga could become a mixed-use residential development in the future.

The request to change land-use permissions for the property at 99, 189, 199, 209, 219, 299 and 309 Rathburn Rd. West, 97 and 100 City Centre Dr. first came to the Planning and Development Committee in September. Committee members voted to defer a decision for further discussions with the land owner, Oxford Properties Group.

In September, one resident expressed concern about the loss of the movie theatre but Ward 4 Councillor John Kovac suggested another theatre could be built in its place.

While the request to change the land use from office to downtown mixed-use was approved at the Nov. 25 Planning and Development Committee meeting, it doesn’t necessarily mean there will be no theatre.

“We are going to work with Oxford and we are going to make sure whatever ends up happening, we have a movie theatre here,” said Kovac.

There is no application to redevelop the land right now but blocks of property north of Rathburn Road West and between Confederation Parkway and Duke of York Boulevard are to be re-designated from office to downtown mixed-use.

One block will be changed to include “a new public open space of significant size,” said Josh Neubauer, a partner and planner with Urban Strategies Inc. This office use block will now include .92 hectares of parkland.

The addition of parkland is part of the vision for future residential development, said Veronica Maggisano, vice president, development at Oxford Properties Group.

“People want to live in a vibrant downtown centre,” Maggisano said. “That (adding parkland) goes to our belief of delivering a community that will be somewhere that people want to live for a long time. That’s important for us that people want to put roots down here, not just for the short term but for the long term.”

The change in land-use permissions doesn’t mean that all the land will be developed into condos, Maggisano indicated.

“Oxford’s roots are in office development so if there is a development to happen, we have a mixed-use designation across all of the lands and therefore we can accommodate office development,” she said.

For more information see the meeting here.

Lead photo: Google Maps