Living in Aurora, Town of Aurora, Ontario » Cineplex Aurora

Winter-y Evening Drive Near John West Way, Construction Site & Year 2012 In Review

Anna Lozyk Romeo — Sat, 29 Dec 2012 03:47:01 +0000

I enjoy photographing everything and to extract some of the things from everything are the night shots. However, it all depends what you take picture of. Note, I am still practicing. No tripod just using very high ISO.

The Ridgewood, John West Way, Town of Aurora

Few years ago I was following a fellow photographer from US and he took these amazing photos of the construction sites. I was hoping one day that I will have an opportunity to do so.

Well I have two here in the Town of Aurora and one of them is the condominium construction site (The Ridgewood) on the John West Way right across the Hollandview Trail Retirement Community.

The Ridgewood, John West Way, Town of Aurora

I went for a drive today and my first stop was behind the movie theater Cineplex. At this moment it is probably the biggest construction site in the Town of Aurora. I have been following progress mostly during the summer, and now from this view point you can hardly see the Hollandview Trail place.

It felt like it was moving slow at first, but once they started to stack up the floors and walls I was able to see changes at the construction site at much faster rate.

The Ridgewood, John West Way, Town of Aurora

This area on the John West Way, near the Aurora Town Hall, is definitely a high density area. I wonder how the traffic is going to be. It wasn’t so bad when I drove by around six o’clock. I actually was surprised to see two buses in the span of five minutes.

Hollandview Retirement Community, John West Way, Town of Aurora

Other High Density Buildings on John West Way, Town of Aurora

On the end of my journey tonight I dropped by the Town Hall and snap some pictures of the Christmas tree. I may be wrong but the tree seems much bigger this year, and it seems dressed more with lights. Well when I get some time I will check if I got some older photos to compare.

This brings interesting point, the landscapes don’t just change because buildings rise or fall, but in addition because trees grow and tress fall down and sometimes not by themselves.

Christmas Tree 2013, Town Hall, Town of Aurora, Ontario

Well this may be my last post for the year 2012, so let me summarize few things. I just checked statistics for this site and this site had about 17,300 visits and 35,800 page views in the year 2012. I think that this is not that bad for a local blog. About eighty percent of my visits are from Aurora and surroundings (York Region).

I published 110 posts, slightly less than last year, but this was because I launched community FOCUS (LivingInAurora.COM) site and spent some time writing some content there. I don’t know how many images were published on this blog in 2012 but all I can tell you that this blog has a library of over 1,400 images of the Town of Aurora or photos that were taken on the grounds of Aurora.

My list of subscribers is constantly growing and if they don’t subscribe to my mailing list I know I am being followed using RSS feeds. I do have a twitter account and interesting spread of followers. My site is mainly found via search engines because someone is looking for something specific. It is nice that some actually drop me emails and write me interesting things they know about Aurora.

This year I have engaged more in photographing changes happening in Aurora, and I will do that more in the following year. I have extensive library of photos of the former Wells Street Public School and there will be more as the main construction didn’t start yet. I also have extensive library of photos of the Petch Log House reconstruction which I have been photo shooting since October 2012.

To conclude this post, let me list few of many interesting keywords through which people found this photo journal blog: trees that cry, who lives on my road, aurora issues, environmental issues in aurora, is there water good for drinking in aurora ontario, aurora mystery solved, aurora ontario horror and brave naked. However, the most used keyword and variations were for wells street public school.

“Whether we want them or not, the New Year will bring new challenges; whether we seize them or not, the New Year will bring new opportunities.” a quote by Michael Josephson.

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2013.

GO Station, Wellington Street, Town of Aurora

Changing Aurora, Zellers Store Closing, New Resort-Style Condominiums, Safer Intersections

Anna Lozyk Romeo — Mon, 20 Aug 2012 06:06:09 +0000

The Town of Aurora is gearing up for the 150 years celebrations in 2013 and there will be plenty, and there will be plenty of new developments probably ready for 2013 as well. We will be celebrating 150 years of our town but we will be celebrating new beginnings as well.

Target beginnings. Zellers stores are closing down and will be replaced with Target stores. We have one store here in Aurora on Bayview Street. I am kind of surprised that the store lasted that long. Some stores are good when merchandise go on sale and Zellers was one of them – good just for that. Zellers was never my cup of tea, but the ironic thing is that I shopped there.

Zellers Closing Down, Bayview Street, Aurora

Now the store is liquidating everything. I went there couple of times few weeks ago to check out sales and I still think it was a bit too expansive for the liquidating store. But I am sure their pricing is much better by now when closer to the store closing. The drawback is that there will be nothing left to satisfy my purchasing needs.

If I am not mistaken. Until closing the store is operating under Zellers stores – purchasing methods and reward points. However, they are in the hands of liquidators, so theoretically it is not Zellers. That means that the liquidator purchased everything in the store, all the inventory.

Usually at the beginning of liquidation the liquidator will try to make as much profit as possible and once satisfied then the prices become better even for the expensive merchandise. So if you are looking for real deal sales you may want to visit soon or closer to the store closing date.

The store building will remain, but expect a new Target store facade in the 2013.

New Ridgewood II Resort-Style Condominium Behind the Cinaplex Building

Another interesting change here in Aurora will be change to the landscape view, the new Ridgewood II Resort-Style condominium behind the Cineplex Aurora located on the same plaza as Zellers. Not sure how high these will be, but the view behind the movie theater will never be the same. It will be build to last, and the way we build those today, they will last may be forever.

On the side note, on the photo below, one of the buildings behind the new development on John West Way is the Hollandview Trail Retirement Residence, the red building. An interesting opportunity is waiting there for me – and no no no I am not retiring.

A lifestyle coordinator from this retirement residence stumble upon my photo journal blog (this blog you are reading now) and asked me to present my photos and tell stories to seniors. At first I thought – what stories? But then my every post is a story. My presentation is scheduled for mid September, so you will be hearing more about that later.

But before I change the topic. When I went to visit this place just for a quick meeting I was amazed how friendly all the seniors were. At some point they started to gather around at the lobby, main attraction being Matthew. Poor Matthew just kept nodding his head and gently smiling at them and slowly his shyness kicked in and tried to hide behind me.

New Condominiums In Front of Hollandview Retirement Centre, John West Way, Aurora

Lastly, I noticed that last year around the same time many sidewalks were fixed. And this year, just before the school, sidewalks are being fixed again and crossing lines are being painted.

At the St. John’s side road and Yonge Street intersection traffic signal posts are being pushed back further away from the intersection. Probably for safety reasons.

Street Lights Moved Back, St. John’s sideroad, Aurora

And speaking of safety. I followed up on the sidewalk that was promised by the town to be installed on the intersection of St. John’s sideroad and Earl Stewart Drive, just beside the Superstore.

A year passed and nothing happened. I asked for the update and looks like nothing was going to happen again. So I made little squeaky noise and sidewalk design was promised for September. Will keep that on the close watch because of safety concern.

In conclusion, these are some of the changes that will be in store for next year in Aurora, but there will be more – downtown Aurora, Petch log house, Wells Street School conversion to lofts are some. Look out for more on changing Aurora posts.