Revisiting how soon is soon ?

On March 5 last year I wrote a post about a redevelopment of a local shopping centre. The original shopping centre had been built in the late 60s early 70s.
 A friend sent me an old photo that she had found...the old shopping centre was down in a hollow in the centre of the site with the building surrounded by a rather large carpark. The centre contained a supermarket and quite a number of small shops. There was also a reception lounge.

In last year's post I showed photos of the earthworks on the site and pondered the use of the words , 'Opening soon' on the hoardings around the site. Just how 'soon' is 'soon'?

A month or so on from March 2016...

Then in August I was in the suburb checking out the op shops for items for the 60s night that DH and I were going to. So out came the phone and I took some progress photos...

 By the beginning of this year, the huge site appeared to be covered by the building with car park spaces on the roof  and underneath the building. And 'badging' had been done...Coles and Liquorland were the only signs we could see. Cafes? Pharmacy? Newsagency ? No signs any way...

On February 18, the store opened. And perhaps we shouldn't have been surprised to find that the site was completely given over to a Coles supermarket and their subsidiary bottleshop  Liquorland...no small businesses at all.

 

 

It is a huge supermarket! But I'll stick with my smaller local Coles.

Now this shopping centre is near Alderley railway station and parking around Brisbane  stations can be quite challenging as the station carparks fill up very early in the morning Mon-Fri. So there are signs in this new centre informing customers that there is 2 hours free parking. If you stay longer, it is $77. But I think you can stay the whole day for that price! Management claims it is to stop rail commuters from parking there and then travelling to the city.

So in conclusion to answer the question, 'how soon is soon' ? In this case it is a few days short of 12 months! lol 

Optimism Personified??

In a suburb near ours there was a small shopping centre. It originally had a Coles supermarket ( later rebranded as a BiLo) , a number of smaller shops such as a chemist, bakery, fruit shop, snack bar etc and a Reception Lounge upstairs above the smaller shops. And all around these buildings was a huge car park. 

Well on January 31 this year, all the shops closed. The temporary fencing went up...

And the heavy machinery moved in and pretty soon the shopping centre looked like this...

As you can see, there IS no shopping centre any more! Lol

And even the other block of shops on the Samford Rd side of the shopping centre was demolished.

Now the temporary fencing is shrouded in mesh and the wording is rather interesting...

Here's a better view of that writing.

Soon? Just exactly what do they mean by soon??

I believe the new Coles development is due to open sometime next year! :-/