Editor:
Ah, those pesky artists. You’ve gotta give them credit for being so creative. Especially those ones who dream up the ‘what-it-will-look-like’ visions of coming developments.
I remember the pictures they drew and promises they made when they first proposed building the Semiahmoo Mall (at least they got the name right).
That was when the block of land bounded by 152 Street on the east, 148 Street on the west, 16 Avenue on the south and 20 Avenue on the north end was forest. It was quite a lot like the Sunnyside Urban Forest which, thankfully, was fought for and preserved.
They asserted that, looking towards the mall from 152 Street, you wouldn’t know there was anything behind the trees, they’d be so dense.
Only they weren’t. It didn’t take more than two winters’ worth of storms to see them all downed or deemed dangerous enough that they had to be taken out. And now, there is barely room on the sidewalk, between the street and stores, to pass each other when walking.
So today, we get a new artist’s vision of what the Semiahmoo Town Centre will look like. But I’m not sure which byway this is supposed to be next to. Is it 152 Street? Not as it exists.
It’s hard to want to even imagine what the finished development will resemble.
The future lives here? Not the kind of future most of us hoped for.
Heidi Greco, Surrey