08-01-2021, 04:48 PM
(08-01-2021, 02:50 PM)ac3r Wrote: Condos, hipster grocery stores and cafes aren't enough to make the atmosphere of downtown Kitchener any more lively or unique than it is. The problem is that what currently exists downtown almost exclusively caters to the 9 to 5 crowd and there are very, very, very few reasons for "normal" people (aka anyone not living down there) to go downtown for anything, let alone outside of business hours. There's an art gallery, boring museum and a vaguely niche theatre that make it unique, but that's about it. Everything else downtown exists much more plentifully and conveniently (i.e. business hours) in the rest of the city. Until there are enough interesting shops and...well, basically anything to do downtown, it's always going to have this weird vibe made up of people getting lunch then disappearing and various riff raff roaming the streets asking for spare change or cigarettes. 620'000+ people living here and the main urban district doesn't even have a grocery store...Hopefully, once the new condo and rental apartment buildings are finished and populated and the new stores in those buildings are up and running, things will get better downtown. Also, when we are finally out of the pandemic, maybe some of the closed downtown entertainment venues will reopen and the festivals will come back, bringing more people downtown. Give it a couple of years.