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Signs of life at Cloverdale West Village site

Months of inactivity at the old Cloverdale Mall site came to a sudden end in December.
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The Cloverdale Shopping Plaza

Months of inactivity at the old Cloverdale Mall site came to a sudden end in December.

Chain link fencing was put up around the site, bordered by the Cloverdale bypass and 57 Avenue, and two weeks ago a team of excavators began remediation work, reviving hopes that redevelopment plans will finally get underway.

The aging mall was torn down in early 2011 as part of a city-backed, multi-phase plan to redevelop the site with a mix of commercial and residential buildings, but the property has been vacant ever since.

The project’s first phase – which included a new home for Royal Canadian Legion Branch 6 in Cloverdale – was shelved at the start of 2012 due to market conditions.

But in June, Cloverdale’s merchants were told phase one of Cloverdale West Village, the City of Surrey’s long-standing promise to redevelop the derelict mall site into a thriving neighbourhood hub. would be going ahead after all.

Surrey City Development Corporation CEO Jim Cox provided the Cloverdale Business Improvement Association with an update, revealing the Cloverdale Legion had approved a slightly revised plan.

http://raven.b-it.ca/portals/uploads/cloverdale/.DIR288/wCloverdaleWestVillageDrawing.jpgThe branch will get a 10,000-square-foot hall, plus 1,800 square feet of retail space to rent out as an ongoing source of revenue. The will also be four floors of residential space in phase one.

Cox told The Reporter last week the work being done on site consists of soil remediation to deal with contamination stemming from a former dry cleaning operation at the mall.

“There was nothing bad,” Cox said. “We did a whole bunch of analysis to find little contamination.”

The first phase of Cloverdale West Village is still awaiting zoning and development permit approvals at City Hall.

Once those approvals are in place, site servicing – creating roads, plus adding the necessary sewer and water infrastructure – can begin this spring,  with a projected start of construction on the first phase starting towards the end of 2013.

The plan is to develop five parcels in all.

“So, it’s underway, and over the next few months there will be lots of activity people will see there,” Cox said.