Carlingwood Shopping Centre owners scrap redevelopment plans—for now
Two years after calling the 30-acre west-end mall site ripe for housing, Anthem Properties and Streamliner Properties say no major projects are planned.
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The owners of Carlingwood Shopping Centre have shelved plans to transform the 30-acre west-end site into a residential development—at least for now.
Vancouver-based Anthem Properties Group and Toronto's Streamliner Properties Inc. partnered in 2024 to acquire the 632,700-square-foot retail complex on Carling Avenue, anchored by Canada's largest Canadian Tire store. At the time, they called the property's proximity to a major arterial road and the soon-to-be-completed New Orchard LRT station a "prime location for much-needed incremental residential density."
Now, a spokesperson for Anthem says the firm and its partner "continue to maintain and improve" the shopping plaza, which celebrated its 70th anniversary three weeks ago, but have no immediate construction plans.
"At this time there are no development plans for Carlingwood," communications adviser Rebecca Vigelius said in an email.
The company is, however, investing in the site. A parking garage at the north end was recently demolished because it "needed significant repair and was no longer in use." It will be replaced with a new surface parking lot, updated sidewalks, and improved stormwater drainage systems—work expected to wrap up by year's end.
When the mall's previous owners put the property up for sale three years ago, Carleton University business professor Ian Lee argued the site's real long-term value lay in residential development, not retail. With Ottawa's centre of gravity shifting westward, he said, the land had become too valuable to remain a parking lot. That logic hasn't changed. Whether Anthem and Streamliner will eventually revisit redevelopment remains an open question.
