The City's planning committee has approved a plan to tear down the Westgate Shopping Centre and replace it with several mixed-use towers.
The plan by RioCan includes five towers, two of which could be 36-storeys tall.
Kitchissippi Ward Councillor Jeff Leiper tells CFRA's Ottawa Now with Evan Solomon RioCan, wants to modernize the property on Carling Avenue.
But he admits there are services there that remain essential.
"The Service Ontario is in there," Leiper says. "If RioCan knows what's good for it, it will replace the Service Ontario that's in the mall right now into one of the new buildings. The Shoppers Drug Mart is almost certainly going to stay."
"Rockin' Johnny's I'm sure will have the opportunity to move in," he adds.
Leiper says, however, that the project is a long-term one, and it could take as many as 20 years before it's fully complete.
"This is going to be a really slow development," he says. "So, right now, where the Monkey Joe's is, that would be the first phase. They're looking at taking down the Monkey Joe's and replacing it with a 24-storey mixed-use building. Then, they would go to where the Shoppers Drug Mart is, knock that down, and build the mirror image 24-storey building. Then, sometime in the next 15 years or so, they would take town the old strip mall and replace that three more towers."
Leiper says the mall, which first opened in 1955, no longer fits into current retail strategies, which is why RioCan is looking to intensify land he calls "criminally underused."
But he does admit that during the process, something will be lost.
"There are a lot of people, seniors especially, but also young parents and others, who are using the strip mall right now as a social gathering place," Leiper says. "Sometime in the course of the next 15 years or so, they're going to lose that and that is a shame."
The plan must still go before full City Council on April 12.