What does DTK need?

[taylortbb]

Again I agree with the names you mentioned....Bring in a nifty Anthropology (think downtown Oakville), an H&M (think Queen in downtown Toronto), an anchor Canadian Tire (how is that Home Hardware? In Uptown fairing?), a Lululemon, Homesense.

I think we need a lot more people living downtown for any of that to be viable. Right now if you built it the people that live downtown would go there, but why would anyone else? If they're already getting in their car it would be way easier to go to the mall, where parking is abundant and free, than to go to the DTK H&M. You could make parking abundant and free in DTK by levelling buildings, but it wouldn't be downtown anymore.

That grocer Marchè seemed promising but holy hell, it's overpriced.  Like common look at the city you are in.

It's my closest grocery store, as I live at Charlie West, and I really disagree. It's built more upscale, which creates the perception of it being more expensive, but actually comparing like-for-like products... it's pretty close to Zehrs/Sobeys.

But I guarantee if you could wave a magic wand and have a bunch of popular stores open up, have some good entertainment venues, open up some mainstream food places, make the drug addicts disappear and so on, then people would likely flock down there. Your average citizen has really no reason to venture downtown and that is a problem.

I actually disagree with this. If I waved my magic wand and opened some retail stores in DTK, they'd be mostly empty and close shortly thereafter. Once someone has to drive, the suburban store is far easier to get to. Trying to make DTK a destination for suburbanites was the awful idea that lead to disasters like Market Square.

Stores survive in DTK other because they serve people that live in DTK (e.g. Starbucks), or they have a differentiated offering that isn't available in suburbia (e.g. Grand Trunk Saloon). This is why DTK restaurants do well, but there are no chain ones. There is no equivalent to Grand Trunk Saloon in the suburbs, so people deal with the inconvenience. A Kelsey's would flop in the same location, as it wouldn't be differentiated from the suburban Kelsey's.

If you want to see DTK like this, we either need to get more people living downtown, or fundamentally change how most North Americans get around to not be car first. The more people living downtown one seems far more feasible to me (especially as people's transportation choices are largely a product of their environment). That's why I want to see every proposed condo tower happen ASAP, and they add significant numbers of people with disposable income to DTK.