General Business Updates and News

[danbrotherston]

Yeah, actually ironically, it's already functions as a bit of a portico that some here are such big fans of.  As for why you cannot add entrances, I'm not sure just entrances are enough---there are some already.  There needs to be something there at streetlevel, shops, even just hallways. I can't tell for sure, but it looks like the floor level of the building is not at ground level there. That could be very hard to rennovate. There also appear to be utility accesses and garage doors that could be hard to rennovate around.

I was thinking you could do something like what Eaton Lofts has: the floor is higher, but there is a lower floor, whether for a display window or something else, in front of the windows. Would need a structural engineer to determine whether this is feasible.

Duke St and Scott St sides are much worse, hence my suggestion to tear down that part and intensify half (ish) the property.

Yeah, there is some possibility for creative solutions like that. One issue I see, is accessibility, if all the retail spaces are up a flight of stairs it becomes a very unfriendly block for anyone not on two feet, and I don't just mean folks in wheelchairs, but anyone with a stroller, walker, even just someone less able to climb stairs. And ultimately, there are requirements for accessibility. I'll be curious how they manage it at the Eatons lofts, hopefully they are able to accomodate a ramp, the little elevator things work, but I think they are probably pretty cumbersome and a little unsightly. But in either case, it probably limits the number of units along the street, they'd have to be larger shopfronts.

I certainly agree it would be a big improvement, but possibly still worse than tearing down and rebuilding. I'm clearly not terribly sentimental about the building, and in general, I've got little patience for "heritage" these days, but I think we've been through that in other threads.

If I'm honest, I don't have much hope for Duke St. The court house is pretty and all, but isn't going to be an active streetscape. Although I'll be curious to see how it looks with the bike lanes added. Narrowing the road could make it significantly more pleasant. Scott St. probably has more potential than Duke, but it is a pretty minor side street. In either case though, it seems you are talking about demolishing the parking garage...which...make no mistake, I am totally for. But I'm only for it if we aren't spending a fortune to build a new one. Basically, if we're at a place in time where we can politically (and economically) demolish a parking garage, I'm for it, but I think spending a fortune on a new one is a very bad decision.

And yes, I realize that the current downtown plan has a new parking garage in it.  I think that will be one of the climate action plan benchmarks. If the city is serious about climate action, it will remove the parking garage from it's future plans. It's far enough out to be a reasonable course correction, but also close enough to be a critical decision in terms of climate change.