Big box stores have been widely condemned for damaging older commercial areas, but four new power centres are planned for Hamilton. The proposals would add the equivalent of three more Meadowlands Power Centres to a city that already has thousands of empty commercial units.

Waterdown is facing the biggest onslaught, with two major commercial developments near Clappison's Corners vying to open first. Together they could add 1.4 million square feet of commercial area, nearly three times as much as the current combined retail space in Waterdown.

RioCan, Canada 's biggest mall owner, has approval to erect a big box complex on the south side of Highway 5, just east of Highway 6, but is now trying to get an okay to include a number of smaller stores in their 550,000 square foot development. RioCan already owns the Meadowlands Power Centre in Ancaster and 168 other properties across the country worth $3.2 billion.

On the north side of #5, the Flamborough Power Centre got through its first city council approval in late September for a planned 850,000 square foot commercial complex. It is expected to include big boxes as well as stores similar in size to existing retail outlets in Waterdown. The key approvals for development in this location date back twenty years.

These two proposals are causing deep concern in the business associations of Dundas and Westdale as well as among the merchants of Waterdown. Westdale businesses are already reeling from the conversion of the Main Street No Frills site into a 87,000 square foot Fortino's superstore. That development was okayed by city council in 2002.

Waterdown, Dundas and Westdale have so far been able to maintain viable commercial cores, escaping the major damage from super malls and power centres that has devastated areas like downtown Hamilton and the commercial strips along Barton, Kenilworth and other major streets in the lower part of the city.

The Stoney Creek area also is also facing two competing big box proposals. One is a just-announced 600,000 square foot development on Mud Street , straddling Upper Mount Albion Road. The other straddles Rymal Road near Highway 20 and includes a Fortino's superstore that opened two years ago. Plans are now afoot to more than double the size of that store, and to add 325,000 square feet of big boxes on the south side of Rymal.

The Mud Street proposals drew an angry crowd of 250 residents to a meeting in late September. While people in the area have waited a long time for local shopping facilities, there is little enthusiasm for a project the size of Eastgate Square. Formal proposals for this commercial development are expected to reach city council before the end of the year.

The Rymal Road big box complex started with the 86,000 square foot Fortinos at the corner of Highway 20 which is scheduled to expand by another 100,000 square feet. On the south side of Rymal, approvals have already been given to 100 Main Street East to build three more big boxes of the size of a Wal-Mart, Home Depot and Canadian Tire, in a project dubbed Meadowlands East.

These lands are part of a controversial urban boundary expansion that took place in 2000 and includes the 3200-unit Summit Park housing complex recently initiated by Multi-Area Developments. City planners opposed the boundary expansion, but were overruled by the former regional council. In their reports to council, the planners warned that there were already over 4000 empty commercial units in the city in 2000.