Watching the old mall tumble outside their window prompted one company to decide that everyone should share in the coming change.
With a prime view from the fifth floor of the Grandin Park Plaza office tower, employees at LegacyX, a software development company, have set up a live streaming camera and are posting daily snapshots of the demolition and reconstruction of the former mall site.
One day they hope to combine the pictures into a time-lapse video, said designer Byron Sedgwick.
“So you can watch the mall fall and all the new buildings kind of arise from the ashes,” he said.
Developer Amacon is planning to create an urban village with 17 buildings, including three highrise towers, boutique shops, a grocery store and underground parking on the former Grandin Park Plaza site.
Most of the mall will be demolished, starting with the old parkade, visible from LegacyX’s window.
While the company is restricted from seeing other parts of the mall from their window, they are in a great location the first part of construction, said Sedgwick.
Their images show the parkade and part of the mall’s roof. Later on, they may decide to put up a second camera somewhere else, he said.
“We will just wait and see what we get,” he said. “We are having fun with it."
He added that they may start taking more pictures during the day as construction on the site becomes more interesting.
And while completion of the development is set to take at least 10 years, the company is happy to let the camera roll for just as long, he said
“This could really become a bit of an epicentre for the city and it’s interesting to be at ground zero of all this,” he said. “Here we are with a piece of the past surrounding us and we are about to be surrounded by a piece of the future.”
For now, images are posted to Facebook and Twitter every morning at 9 a.m. under the name GoodBye Grandin Mall. People can also check the live feed from the camera at goodbyegrandinmall.com.
