Here’s What Could be Coming to the Hershey Lands in Mississauga
Published January 27, 2018 at 4:37 am
The lands surrounding Hershey Centre have sat vacant since Cavalia’s Odysseo show ended in August of last year–and people are starting to wonder what’s going to happen to them.
In fact, we speculated about the future of the lands quite recently.
While it is not yet known what will become of the ample property, those who wonder might be interested to know that the City of Mississauga is in the process of finding good use for the 10-acre lands and is putting forward what’s called a Request for Expression of Interest in the spring to seek potential developments for the site.
“This City is looking at future development opportunities around the Hershey Centre site. This 10-acre plot, referred to as the event pad, is land that the city would like to develop,” said Karen Flores, a senior communicatiosn advisor with the city, in an email to inSauga.com
“The event pad was developed by the city for short-term use as an event pad and was recently used by Cavalia to host its Odysseo production.”
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You may remember the controversial debates that took place at council about two years ago when the city invested close to $500,000 to prepare the site for use by Cavalia, an entertainment show similar to Cirque du Soleil.
Cavalia has been recognized world-wide in countries such as Germany, China, Australia and Spain as a successful performance and entertainment show. Odysseo was brought in to increase tourism for Mississauga and, ideally, lay the foundation for future events such as car shows, fairs, food festivals and more at the Hershey Centre lands site.
The show was expected to attract 80,000 to 110,000 people to Mississauga in a 12-week show period and increase local spending by 24 per cent, according to Dimitri Soudas, senior adviser to Cavalia’s president.
Now that Odysseo has finished, the lands have remained vacant and council is looking for something to fill the void.
The site is located near Matheson and Rose Cherry Place which is some distance away from Mississauga’s central core. The lack of restaurants and shops in the area makes it difficult to create an atmosphere needed for tourism and entertainment, so that could become a challenge.
“The city is exploring a more permanent development that can provide more benefit to the city and the site,” Flores says. “The current plan is to use the event pad for car shows, special events, overflow parking, Carassauga, etc., unless or until a permanent development use is identified. Any development process would take two to three years so we will continue to program the event pad during that time.”
As of now, the city has been approached with two potential opportunities. One opportunity would include a development that would boast restaurants, the other is a hotel with a year-round water park.
Some councillors mentioned they would still prefer to use the site as a venue for events while others at City Hall are looking for a more permanent occupant.
We’ll keep you updated on more details as they emerge.
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