General Urban Kitchener Updates and Rumours

[danbrotherston]

I think the biggest failing in DTK is advertising, aside from the apollo, which I frequent quite a bit, I wouldn't know about these things if I didn't walk past them...which is why foot traffic is so important.

I don't think I can agree with this. Places like the Conrad Center really only attract people who are already going to actively seek out that kind of entertainment. I absolutely love the Apollo, but if I was a suburban living car driver, I can get close enough of an experience at any other theater without the negative experiences of DTK. Same thing for many of the more generic restaurants and bars that dot the downtown. I think most of my friends (all suburban living) are aware of what's available downtown, especially since I've mentioned much of what's available, and they continue to choose to not come here.

I think repeat-customer kind of retail and unique experience based businesses are what will get a consistent flow of people visiting downtown, but there is a bit of a chicken and egg problem there.

There is literally no possible downtown theater that will attract suburban folks who want free parking, and are scared of downtown. The point is, there is a theater downtown, and it's great for us downtown folks, and folks who want a downtown experience, rather than a drive to suburban mall experience.

I don't even think there's value in trying to attract a suburban car dependent crowd to downtown, all they will do is clog the roads, demand free parking, and generally complain about downtown. Those who want a downtown experience will come here, or live here, or live on transit, those who want a suburban mall experience will never enjoy downtown. And there's nothing wrong with that, we have an abundance of suburbia for them to enjoy. What we lack is an abundance of downtown style living, but we are growing it. And I don't mean to exclude people outside of downtown--there are many other areas outside of DTK where people may can live an urban--car light style of living. I do mean to exclude people who are entierly dependent on their car for getting around. If you want to use a car to go to the movie theater, you will probably be happier at cineplex every time. But if you don't want to use a car to get to the theater, going to cineplex is unpleasant and scary, I'm very glad that we have alternatives now. Realistically though, nobody is being excluded, there is tons of parking downtown (too much in my opinion), and it's too easily (also in my opinion) accessible by car. People who want to come downtown, have no problem doing so. But so many people don't want to, so why should we try to attract them--we can only do so by ruining the experience that makes an urban area pleasant and unique to those who want that.

The original question was that downtown is lacking things, I think it's been explained very clearly by myself and many others that most of the things people think are missing, are in fact here...the fact that they don't replicate the suburban mall experience is a feature, not a problem.

I agree there probably are retail segments missing from downtown, but I am frequently surprised that when I think of something that is missing, I can often find a small business which actually fills that niche, but I do have to look.