Town of Newmarket council grilled the representative of a developer proposing to build a storage and office building on Davis Drive about its suitability for the corridor.
Oskar Group plans to develop a six-storey building primarily for self-storage but also with some office and retail space. The proposed building would be at the current location of a parking lot at 514 Davis Dr. and would include 64 parking spaces.
Representatives presented the plan to council Sept. 16, with some council members expressing concerns with the proposal. Deputy Mayor Tom Vegh said he did not think the use case was the best for Davis Drive.
“Davis Drive is, quite frankly, a premier street in our town, and you usually don’t see these types of self-storage units on premier streets,” Vegh said, later adding, “I was hoping for a more premier use for this.”
The developer is seeking a zoning amendment to make the project happen. The proposal would include self-storage space on all six floors of the building with some retail on the first floor. It has been years in the making, with the application originating in December 2022, but a similar application going back to 2017.
Weston Consulting senior planner Kayly Robbins said they are working to ensure the building design works for the Davis Drive corridor.
“We’ve considered through design, we’ve tried to establish or create a contemporary building,” she said. “Typically self-storage, you’re right, is slightly more unattractive, and we’ve tried to place it in a more attractive building … Essentially hoping that if you’re on Davis Drive, you don’t know that it’s a self-storage facility.”
Robbins added that Oskar Group has done studies in the area and there is demand for self-storage, which could increase in the area as more residential growth comes in.
Still, council members were worried about the nature of the development.
“I’m just concerned about the need on Davis Drive, the look of the building, and its configuring with the future of Davis Drive,” Councillor Grace Simon said. “It’s an interesting-looking building. I don’t know if it’s interesting for Davis Drive or not.”
Councillor Bob Kwapis suggested that there could be work done in the building phase to ensure the building could possibly transition in the future to more office or even residential space.
“Once you’re building it, having the piping and everything else is usually the biggest thing. If you pre-built with that in mind, I think it would be good for all of us, knowing where the shortages of housing are,” Kwapis said.
Newmarket Mayor John Taylor said he was not taking a stance on that one way or another, but self-storage on corridors is becoming more commonplace.
“This type of business model on major corridors is a well-emerging phenomenon across the United States and Canada,” Taylor said. “There’s the movement of storage (from) single-storey storage in the periphery of town to corridors, multi-storey … This is not an untested or a new concept.”
The building also has green design elements, including plans for solar panels and electric vehicle charging stations. Taylor suggested that the building would be a good model for geothermal energy.
Taylor also referenced the property's history, which sat idle for many years as the developer tried to put forward a now-defunct proposal for an office building.
“The market is in an unusual palace right now,” Taylor said. “We know, they tried for, I don’t know how many years, to achieve a full office build-up and the market did not support it, period,” Taylor said.
Council made no final decisions on the project, with staff taking in feedback to work with the developer on. The project could then come back to council for zoning approval at a later date.
