What does DTK need?

[the_conestoga_guy]

100% agree with ac3r's remarks above @ need some big draw household names in DTK and that the restos alone are not doing it.

I think that there's a real discussion to be had about whether or not we "want" to draw people downtown. Intuitively, it makes sense that we want to support our local downtown businesses by maximizing the number of patrons coming through. But there's the push-back from local residents who don't want the compromises that come with extra traffic and parking. There's also the considerable push-back against entertainment options like moving the arena downtown.

I think that we need to be focusing on two things to create a quality downtown: increasing the population of downtown residents, and building a good downtown transit hub. Bonus points if we can build our AAA active transportation networks and minimize passing-through traffic from cars.

Once these are in place, I think we'll organically see investment from private businesses like Canadian Tire or Lululemon.