02-15-2024, 04:11 PM
(02-15-2024, 12:55 PM)westwardloo Wrote: I have a feeling like the City will side with the NIMBY's and the climbing community on this one because of how much of a fuss they are making. The good thing for GRR is I don't think the developer is serious about the project and is just looking for a rezone and flip.
I disagree. I seriously doubt they'll side with the NIMBY over something irrelevant like upset indoor climbers, irregardless of whether or not the developer plans to actually build this. Clearly Grand River Rocks has no clue what they're doing in terms of business operation. They had a cheap lease over on Borden Ave and it worked for them short term, but since the region is growing they lost it as Vive Development saw that this is a prime piece of land beside a transit station. So what does GRR do? The exact same thing...lol. They find a super cheap place to set up their business but somehow didn't have the smarts to consider that maybe this former Goodlife location might also get redeveloped, especially because it sat vacant for years.
The city is going to run the numbers on this one as they do with other developments these days. The long term macro economic benefits that 1000+ new homes and over 1000 square meters of commercial space directly in the core will provide much, much, much greater benefit to the city and region than some climbing gym run by people that obviously aren't that good at running a business. Council can make some really goofy decisions at times but they have a lot of people working with the city that are able to look at the objective facts and suggest the best decision for them to make. Again yeah they make some bad choices, but our planners and most of council aren't watching Facebook videos and browsing comment sections then making decisions based off nonsense like that.
I think it will get approved (albeit with some delay), GRR will sulk but accept it and then hopefully not go do the same thing again by moving into somewhere that is inevitably going to get redeveloped. I can't feel bad for them because they're obviously not making good choices.