01-24-2017, 09:50 PM
(01-24-2017, 11:51 AM)Viewfromthe42 Wrote: I am talking about benefitting in the outward-facing and usable way. I think it's a benefit to have Communitech, Thalmic, the school of Pharmacy, Netsuite downtown, but were all of downtown to be those kinds of places, it would actually be a terrible office park. Google might indeed be good at bringing new people into the neighbourhood, but a closed-off building like that is not one we want to be replicated en masse in an urban area, it's actually quite horrible when done repeatedly.
The earlier renderings show some (small amount of) park space outside, plus retail space (open to non-tenants) inside. (Yes, there is the question of the King St wall but let's wait for a new render on that.)
Office space is inherently closed (except to employees). Residential buildings are inherently closed (except to residents). Retail and public buildings are the only major types not inherently closed. Yet I don't think we should be turning away either residential or office space development. Downtown cannot be all retail, that doesn't work, either.