One Young (née Mayfair Hotel) | 5 fl | Complete

[mpd618]

In the spirit of demolition (pardon my sarcasm), with the Mayfair and Hymmen buildings being removed, part of me feels like the two remaining buildings should also be demolished to create the best redevelopment opportunity. ... In any event, there's an opportunity for some great density and master planning on that site under current zoning if the frontage from Young St to the Elements building was considered as a whole. Unfortunately, with multiple property owners with different timelines and agendas, that can be difficult to achieve.

I think increasing the amount of frontage belonging to a single building here tends to result in more boring buildings and less interesting streetscapes. Demolishing a good building in order to make a wider homogeneous facade is not my idea of an improvement. I think if we got rid of the requirements to provide parking within every project and the minimum frontage requirements, it would be a lot easier to build good density without a large land assembly.

You are right ... factory jobs have disappeared (I worked at Schneider's, too, when I was young ...).  Not only downtown, but in all of Kitchener, in Ontario, in Canada -- all of the western countries.  Factories are now mostly in low-cost countries, and I doubt they will ever come back here, not in the same form.

Manufacturing is still a very large part of our local economy (roughly ~20% of employment), and my understanding is that it is not on a sharp downward trajectory. What's left is of course more niche and more advanced kinds of manufacturing.