Markham ground floor offices - keeping retail

NRU
Sept. 13, 2017
By Dominik Matusik

Markham is trying to cultivate a mainstreet experience in one of its historic centres, but creeping office uses are putting this in jeopardy.

Ward 4 councillor Karen Rea told NRU that recently a large number of offices have opened up on the ground floors of commercial buildings on Main Street Markham, threatening the strip's commercial viability and pedestrian-friendliness.

"The BIA gets just over $200,000 every year," Rea says. "These are operational expenses and to put on different events. You spend the money to put the events on Main Street, but if all the businesses are offices and they all close at five o'clock, why are you bringing the people out?"

The staff report notes that Markham's official plan encourages at-grade retail uses for its "Commercial-Heritage Main Street" areas, but office uses are permitted.

"We took Main Street Markham down from four lanes to two lanes and built bumpouts to try and get it more pedestrian-friendly," Rea says. "We have Music on Main on Fridays, we have a number of festivals every year to try and bring pedestrians to the street to shops and restaurants. And what we're finding is we have a lot of real estate offices opening up. We have a dermatology [clinic] opening up that's been monopolizing all of the parking, and they've just expanded to three other buildings. And the comments I'm getting from residents and business owners is we've got more and more offices opening up."

Through research comparing 11 similar main street areas in municipalities across Ontario, staff found that only two of these jurisdictions restrict ground-floor office uses.

Rea notes that Main Street Unionville has a by-law that prohibits office uses in the front portion of the building, but this prohibition doesn't exist on Main Street Markham. She acknowledges that Main Street Markham will likely never be as lively and pedestrian oriented as Unionville due to 407 through-traffic, but she still sees potential to have a vibrant, mixed-use community.

"There's two sides," she says. "If you're a business, you want to be able to rent it out for as much money as you can, you want to rent it out as quickly as possible. On the next side, to have a vibrant mainstreet, you need to have a mixture of different types of businesses and that's where the balance is."

Monday, development services committee directed staff to examine the issue as part of work being done for the new Markham Village Heritage Centre Secondary Plan, rather than hire a retail consultant for a separate study. However, a retail consultant may still be brought on at a later stage. Staff is expected to report back to council by June.