The trees and shrubs that used to dominate the landscape beyond the southeast corner of the North Nechako Road-Foothills Boulevard intersection are gone.
Earth movers have been busy this summer clearing a large area site known as Nechako Corners that will eventually be home of the city’s newest shopping centre/residential development.
The new mall, to be called Cedar Centre, will include a supermarket, ground-floor retail space and two 36-unit three-storey apartment buildings with underground parking.
“It’s a critical corner for the development of Prince George, “ said John Brink, president of Brink Properties Inc. “I’ll be about a 10-acre commercial project there that’s about the same size as Spruceland Mall."
A sign has been up at the intersection for some time. Construction is now under way.
“Already, you can see as you go by there some pretty major things are happening," Brink said. "We have all the approvals and all that kind of stuff has happened already. There’s huge potential. It will be a shopping centre and it will be unique and different in an amazing location. Obviously, a lot of development is already taking place in that region already.”
The area is underserved, and with the exception of a small convenience store in the nearby Caledonia Manufactured Home Park, there is no retail space within a six-kilometre radius of the Cedar Centre site, he said.
Brink said the mall will be finished in either 2026 or 2027.
“We are working on it now, moving a lot of dirt around and preparing the property, road structures are going in, services are going in, and the designs are in place,” said Brink.
Another five-acre strip of land will be cleared in September. Eventually, Brink said, Nechako Corners will have 200 apartment suites.
The larger buildings of the development will incorporate cross-laminated timber (CLT) load-bearing panels and beams.
The final phase will be a 60-lot residential neighbourhood that would extend south to the Nechako Rivers Greenway adjacent to Nechako Riverside Park. The subdivision, which would include single-family homes and medium-density strata housing (duplexes and quadraplexes), would start just beyond the outfield fences of Nechako Ball Park and would border Edgewood Elementary School, separated by a greenbelt.
That will be part of the 50-acre site that also includes Nechako Terrace subdivision east of where the mall development will sit.
The Brink Group of Companies also owns Interior Warehousing, which has close to 400,000 square-feet of warehouse space in the Prince George region, with plans to add warehouse space to Vanderhoof and Houston.
Brink owns Brink Forest Products, which has secondary manufacturing mills in Prince George, Vanderhoof and Houston.
The company makes finger-jointed lumber and is planning to add a mass-timber component that will manufacture CLT products at its Prince George mill on River Road.
While the lumber giants are pulling back on their operations in British Columbia, curtailing shifts and permanently closing mills, Brink continues to think of ways to expand his reach into secondary forestry manufacturing and warehousing.
“Under the circumstances, I’m optimistic on the forest industry and still intend to double the size of our company on the forestry side, in the next five years,” Brink said.
“I’m a believer,” he laughed.
Brink also has a media company which produces his On The Brink podcasts, which have now reached 20 million views on You Tube.
His latest episode, No. 301, features BC United leader Kevin Falcon. Brink has plans to include the other party leaders in future podcasts in the leadup to the Oct. 15 election.
