page_title: Park Place (Ontario)
section_title: Shopping centre
hierarchical_section_title: Park Place (Ontario) / Shopping centre
caption_attribution_description: English: Park Place in Barrie, Ontario, Canada in February 2009, prior to the start of major construction in what is planned to be a business/shopping development. The CKVR Television Tower is visible in the distance.
context_page_description: Park Place is a shopping centre located in the south end of Barrie, Ontario, Canada. The land operated as a brewery from 1967-1999, and as a high-capacity outdoor concert venue from 1987-2005. As a music venue, Molson Park saw acts like Rage Against the Machine, Radiohead, Pearl Jam, Neil Young, Nofx, and Oasis.
  From 2002-2004, the abandoned brewery operated as the largest illegal marijuana grow-operation in Canadian history.
  The current shopping centre includes a Best Buy, LA Fitness, Marshall's, and a Bed, Bath & Beyond.
context_section_description: On October 31, 2006 commercial real estate developers North American Acquisition Inc (NAA), a subsidiary of North American Development Group, LLC (NADG) won an Ontario Municipal Board (OMB) appeal of a rezoning application that had been previously denied by the City of Barrie to rezone the Park Place lands from general industrial to business park zones, and general commercial or mixed employment.
  The City of Barrie had opposed NAA's rezoning application on the basis that it would use a large portion of the City's scarce industrial lands, yet only contribute low-wage retail jobs to the local economy.
  In 2002, the Park Place designs described a car-free, pedestrian-focused outdoor commercial centre hosting hotels, an IMAX cinema, and landscaping.
  After the OMB appeal, development began instead with a box store concept, blamed by developer Terry Coughlin on the 2008 economic downturn: "We're not going to get those fashion-type stores we thought originally. A lot aren't doing too well and they’re working in outlet mode. They’re all going down to Cookstown. ... We're not going to become a fashion centre, even though it was a good idea in 2002 when we started."
  The discrepancy between the plans and the development angered many citizens, including then-mayor Rob Hamilton who described the development as "another mall like all the other malls, all asphalt and cars and hard objects. There'll be no landscaping and none of this warm and fuzzy stuff that it was portrayed as being. Not even close."
caption: Park Place construction paused during the OMB appeal in 2009.
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