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Chronicle The curtain was raised on a $230â€"million development in uptown Waterloo Monday night when city council unanimously approved a development agreement with First Gulf Capital Corporation that included building a new cinâ€" ema on the Waterloo Town Square property. The deal hinged on the sale of the Waterloo Town Square property to First Gulf, finalized last City‘s new parks services team leader favours ‘leashâ€"free‘ zones IT‘S A DEAL: $230â€"fifitibn development plan gets green light Tim Gardner Chronicle Staff Waterloo‘s new team leader for parks serâ€" vices says he personally likes the idea of allowâ€" ing dogs to run free in a specific area of the city. "My thoughts on it are I don‘t think it‘s a bad thing," said Mark Hillis last week, when asked what he thought about the idea. "But I guess wherever a leashâ€"free area would be considered, it would have to fit in to the philosophies of the residents in that area, and the residents of the city of Waterloo." City of Waterloo staff received a letter from a group of Waterloo residents last year just before Christmas asking if a specific area of the city could be set up as a leashâ€"free zone for dogs. At present, the city‘s relevant bylaw requires that all dogs must be leashed and under their owner‘s control when they are not on their owner‘s property. Waterloo‘s manager of bylaw enforcement Kaye Crawford said last March she and the city‘s new director of programming Brian Detâ€" zler were working on a report on the issue but that it was not done yet. At the time, Crawford said she expected the issue would be coming before Waterloo council soon but that she didâ€" n‘t have any idea exactly when. Dog days Hillis said last week he still didn‘t know exactly when the issue would be coming before council. "At this point, 1 would really hesitate to say when," he said. "From my thoughts, the first (Continued on page 2) Bob Vrbanac IEC 0 8 ;”('hrunu!t Staff WATFEPEAN Friday. Although financial details of the deal weren‘t released, it was thought that Canada Life Assurance, the owner of the uptown mall, was seeking upwards of $16 million for the aging eyesore With the sale complete, First Gull also worked out a compromise that satisfied opponents of the proposed project by moving a proposed 12â€" screen cinema from the Seagram Lands to the Waterloo Town Square property. The cinema size has also been scaled down to include a total of 10 movie screens with seating for 2,500 to 3,000 people. With a development agreement in hand, and a $300,000 deposit paid on the 10.79 acres of land on the Seagram and Waterloo Square properties, the first act of the developers will be to get a building permit to start construction on the Waterloo Town Square property at the start of the new year. Mark Kindrachuk, development manager for First Gulf, said that construction will start north and south of the current mall with the cinema and a new 45,000â€"squareâ€"foot supermarket store slated to be built first. Both projects will be built on the vacant land at either end of the mall. "We‘ll build on the vacant lands first," said Kindrachuk after Monday night‘s sale approval "We won‘t be knocking anything down immediâ€" ately." A portion of the current mall will be knocked M”"‘”m (Continued on page 5)