Leveraging opportunity: Brampton studies impact of health centre

NRU
Aug. 31, 2016
By Geordie Gordon

Although not expected to open until early next year, the Peel Memorial Centre for Integrated Health and
Wellness is already generating interest in the development industry.

Keen to leverage the added economic value of the new centre, the city is exploring opportunities to attract
millennial workers and create linkages with other institutions.

Brampton central area planner Paul Aldunate says that when the Peel Memorial Hospital was torn down in 2012 professional offices and employment uses began to leave the area. With William Osler Health System’s new health centre now under construction, some of those uses are starting to return, together with nearby residential development.

“From a residential perspective, we’ve already got a couple of applications before us for high-rise residential development within walking distance of the new Peel Memorial. I’m pretty sure that a lot of them are looking to take advantage of the momentum that the hospital is bringing, and the potential jobs and employment that is going to be generated by the hospital,” he said.

To better understand the economic development potential of the Peel Memorial Centre, the city has commissioned an economic development opportunity study of the area between Etobicoke Creek and Highway 410 along the Queen Street corridor. Aldunate says that the interest in residential and office development would not exist without the new Peel Memorial Centre so the city wants to ensure it is able to capture the value added by the new centre.

“[The study] will give us some answers in terms of what we can do as a city to try and capture that value, [and] define the role of the local government effecting the incremental economic growth,” he said.

The study, which is being carried out by MDB Insight, is intended to measure the economic impact of the health centre, define the roles of local and provincial governments in effecting incremental economic growth, and formulate an implementation plan for attracting targeted investment and capitalizing on the Peel Memorial Centre. The study is scheduled to be completed by the end of the year.

The consultants have been directed to figure out how to attract and retain millennial workers in Brampton - a younger generation of workers that may just be starting out.

“[Millennials] have these new innovative ideas, how do we capture that?...Now that we have the hospital coming, and [I’ve] had a few people contact me, but how do you do it? I think there’s an interest for the younger generation to not necessarily move to Toronto...[Peel Memorial Centre] can have an impact on providing education service or institutions [and jobs] in the area,” said Aldunate. Part of the consultants’ work is to identify potential linkages with a college or university, for example.

“We have a population that’s going to reach 800,000. Right now it’s 500,000 and change, and we don’t have a university. We have a very young population, with a lot of students who go elsewhere to get their education. If you can create those type of environments for them where they can learn here within the city, [offer] those institutions, I think that’s great for the city, it’s great for our youth,” he said.

Once completed the first phase of the Peel Memorial Centre is expected to bring 750 to 850 direct jobs. There is also the potential for a second and third phase of the project, which would result in between 3,000 and 5,000 jobs, both direct and indirect, Aldunate says. “We just got an application in for a seven-storey medical office building within a couple of blocks of the hospital,” Aldunate says. “There’s going to be some linkages, you might see some doctors, some practitioners work out of both [hospital and office] buildings if they can.”

Part of the development interest in the Peel Memorial Centre is that it is based on a new model of health care delivery. While the Peel Memorial Hospital had been a traditional hospital with overnight beds and emergency services, the new centre is focused on chronic and preventative care and will include services such as urgent care, day surgery, high-tech diagnostics, community health, mental health and addiction services.

“There’s not going to be any overnight beds. The idea is to have people come in for the treatments and then leave the same day,” Aldunate said.