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  #21  
Old Posted Dec 21, 2007, 9:57 PM
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Saying Mega-projects don't work is just a lame ass excuse because no one has the balls to build a mega project in Hamilton. This city is so starving, so ripe for something big to happen. Harry said a big seed project is what's needed to get all the landowners downtown off their ass and do something with their land.
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  #22  
Old Posted Dec 21, 2007, 9:59 PM
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let's not get carried away and say that mega projects do work well...check out Jackson Sq...
done PROPERLY, they can work well. his towers fit in with the streetscape and he does retail/commercial at the ground level. he hates blank brick walls as much as I do! And I HATE them.
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  #23  
Old Posted Dec 21, 2007, 11:39 PM
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I'm sorry--is it just me, or are you all now clamouring for a "big" project after all those posts saying "big" projects don't work and pointing to the "failures" of the past (Jackson Square, Copps, Convention Center, etc). I'm all for 'big', I'm all for 'small'--but this sudden sea change surprises me. Harry Stinson is exactly the sort of developer everyone here is always railing against. I'm confused.
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  #24  
Old Posted Dec 22, 2007, 12:01 AM
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if you heard the interview with him today you'd realize that he's exactly the type of developer we've been begging for...not the lame crap we have in this city.
Personally, I'm a big fan of urban streetscapes, infill, street presence etc....but I do recognize the value of a few tall towers in strategic locations.
He's not proposing a Jackson Square...he's making comparisons between the Connaught and 1 King West in TO....that's a far cry from a Jackson Sq flop. Street level retail/cafes with commercial above and then tons of residential. Exactly would we need on empty lots there.
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  #25  
Old Posted Dec 22, 2007, 1:36 AM
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Originally Posted by raisethehammer View Post
yea we know....some of that stuff was posted on a different thread in this forum last week.
welcome to the world of development in Hamilton....sounds like Italy eh?
Thanks, I went and looked it up and I see that member Goldfinger called me out in that thread (probably without realizing that I'm available for conversation). I'm not schooled on Lister enough to respond there. I'll stay with what I know...

Quote:
Great, we have allegations from unanmed sources, disgruntled memebrs of a competing Union and a left wing special interest group. No charges, convictions, inquests, etc.

LIUNA has also been seen with leaders and cabinet ministers from the Provincial and Federal Liberal parties. So I guess we should be calling Dalton, Don Dalton instead.

If you belive this to be fact, you should visit large construction sites across Canada and tell the members that you believe their union dues support organized crime.
OK, this is a complicated story that a few of us have spent years researching. I'm going to throw some links and information at you guys and then you believe what you want of it.

It's all about ripping off pension plans and 'other'. OC has been dipping into those types of slush funds for decades (watch Casino or anything Hoffa related to get the gist).

Here is the step by step:

1) Take lots of money and pretend to 'invest' it in whatever (real estate in this example)
2) Get inflated receipts
3) Spend the real money yourself or invest it offshore
4) Trade and daisy chain the properties and inflated book figures until your investment can be written off as A LOSS.
5) Close the books.

That's it. There's been a minor problem for the last few years. They can't close the books. Their worthless paper 'investments' are just that. Noticeably worthless. And they can't just lose it anymore. Because people are watching. You think all the theoretical money 'borrowed' or 'invested' in the Connaught exists? You're quite the idiot if you do. They need a spectacular LOSS on paper to cover what's been invested.

The same goes for the sister going-nowhere building, which interestingly has its own wikipedia page (links at the bottom are recommended!)...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondo_Condo

Goldfinger mentioned Liberals? Tell him I came this close to blowing up Chretien and I wasn't even 'disgruntled' at the time! I do like the name Don Jean though.

You want charges? We're hoping that FSCO will finally follow through on the charges. Their reports also highlight the Connaught adventures.

You want to know if union dues support organized crime? Do some further reading.

You can keep getting hurt by buying the crap they 'sell' you... or you can expose it and call them on it. I don't know if Hamilton has ever really tried the second option.

I'm always available to chit-chat. Even with you Goldfinger. It's been a few years now that we've been sarcastically tracking this project while feeling sorry for the cheerleaders. It's sort of like watching Leaf fans. They just don't get that the team they're rooting for... sucks ass. Good luck with Stinson. Hope this isn't his last cash-grab before he high tails it out of the country. Ex front-men are known to make millions and then run off to the Caribbean or even off to Germany.

But this is Hamilton. You guys can let me know if things will play out differently.

Last edited by screenplaying; Dec 22, 2007 at 5:54 AM.
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  #26  
Old Posted Dec 22, 2007, 5:51 AM
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Feelings on Yale aside, I stand firm that Jackson Square is far from being a "flop". While many imagine some thriving urbane metropolis had Jackson Square never been built--the truth is, we'd have a large version of Brantford on our hands.
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  #27  
Old Posted Dec 22, 2007, 1:29 PM
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Your feelings on Jackson Square may be very different had you been in to Hamilton to visit it anytime in the past decade or so...

Jackson Square is not a sound development for several reasons. First off, there is no residential element in it. Any succesful modern downtown requires a significant residential element. This is a very basic urban design concept, like motherhood and apple pie.Yet somehow it was completely ignored in the development. Secondly, the phases of development are seriously disjointed. There is little evidence of forethought in the design of the various phases. It is diffiult to navigate, with pockets of its retail concourse excluded from a natural traffic pattern. It was doomed to poor tenancy by design.

How Hamilton would have evolved if JS was not built is purely speculative and second-guessing in its most abstract form. Having said that, had I been around at decision-making time, I would have hesitated on razing such a large part of a thriving business area all at once, and I am including York Street's conversion to a boulevard in this assessment. A more gradual development with a solid long-term vision for the neighbourhood would have produced a much more successful overall project. Having a property management office that is in touch with the needs of the neighbourhood, and a willingness to invest in correcting oversights would have also been helpful.
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  #28  
Old Posted Dec 22, 2007, 1:40 PM
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yea, second guessing is not much use now. For all we know all those great businesses that filled market square, King/James and York might still be there thriving and in a downtown full of pedestrian traffic.
Stinson said yesterday that JS can easily be fixed. Open it to the street and get residential in there.
This guy doesn't seem scared by anything - he said he'd love to get his hands on Stelco Tower and add some high end residential in there. With some renovations to open the complex to the street and rejigging the interior to allow for some of the larger-format stores (he also talked about this for JS) - large grocery, Canadian Tire, Business Depot etc.... it could function well as an urban shopping/dining/working/living complex. Who knows. He might be right, but it would take some good reno's and new influx of retail. They need to rethink the entire place. Knock out stores and open them into bigger spaces if they can land a HomeSense or Winners. They can't just sit on a huge place full of tiny retail spaces that will remain empty forever. An Indigo would work as well...pretty much anything could fit in there since it's so huge. It would just take some work and imagination.
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  #29  
Old Posted Dec 22, 2007, 4:21 PM
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All of this sounds familiar--as in stuff we (and I) have mentioned in the past. Again, just because I happen to live outside of Hamilton doesn't mean I don't visit and it doesn't mean I don't keep up-to-date on what's going on in the city. Jackson Square was highly successful for many years--a combination of factors have hurt it in the past 15--it's design may have been an aggrivating factor--but nothing more so.

Secondly, residential was a large component of Civic Square's original design--I believe it was two large towers on the Bay/York quadrant of the development. This was obviously needed for Copps and thus was deleted from the plan. The phases--while seemingly disjointed were built to satisfy retail and office space demand which existed at the time--plain and simple. Some of the disjointedness of the layout has resulted as a factor of some of the weirdo modifications that have taken place over the years--such as sealing off much of the retail concourse in Phase IV.

Though Stelco Tower may have significant vacancy, I don't think it is the best candidate for residential-ization. As was pointed out, Class A space does quite well in Hamilton, and Stelco Tower has a lot of potential given some investment--it's a great office tower--definitely needs some upgrading--but upgrading would make new commercial tenancy much more viable. Residential is important--but it's not the only path. Agreed though fully that Jackson Square needs a residential element and large format retail.
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  #30  
Old Posted Dec 22, 2007, 4:24 PM
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I'm clamouring now for a 'big seed' project and I always have been. The baby steps approach has been going on for 15 years, unfortunately the decay has been happening in slightly larger babysteps. We've been winning some battles but also loosing some.

Anyone who wants to argue that downtown is better now then it was 15-20 years ago, I ask them to remember that 15 years ago even the Lister Block was open, the Tivoli was functioning as a Famous Players theatre and later live performance venue, The Right House contained more than just a Tim Horton's, the retail space was occupied and a very successful Adverising Agency in the floors above, there were at least a half dozen good popular niteclubs, there were several upscale retail shops, Caplans, Jerry's, Daks, fine furs & jewellers and inside Eaton where a discount dept store is now was the location of Harry Rosen, entrance to Jackson Sq was Club Monaco. Stelco Tower was full, JS was full (and didn't have a wing closed-off) the CIBC was brand new, Cotton Club, Eatons, The Barn, all three floors of Eaton Centre occupied until the early 90s recession. Downtown has never been in worse shape, something big has to happen, because these incrimental steps are not happening fast enough to counter the decaying incriments.

I've always been saying that downtown needs someone with some balls and money to seed the development and get the five families that own downtown off their butts and do something with their land.

They are all waiting for someone to make the first move. They are land speculators, not really interested in developing just waiting for the right time to sell to a real developer. What they don't realize is the longer they take the more decrepit the properties become and they can't sell because they've been paying property tax year after year... forcing them to wait even longer to recoup their 'investment'.

Stinson said on CHML he talked to the landowners and asked "why are you not building, if your not selling?". They're all in a stalemate. Downtown is in a stalemate and Harry looks to be the only person who can break it.
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  #31  
Old Posted Dec 22, 2007, 5:22 PM
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Well if theres one thing through all of this we can consider ourselves lucky to have, its the mass amount of people that still come downtown through all of this mess. Without them downtown would have died 10 years ago. They've been keeping it right on the edge of life. Now we need to keep their attention with some big projects...
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  #32  
Old Posted Dec 23, 2007, 4:46 PM
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yup..Matt is right. Downtown isn't dead by any means. i think Harry is right. It's about to burst to life.
I don't have stats but I'd venture to say there is nowhere in Buffalo that sees over 70,000 pedestrians every 24 hours like our Gore area does. A huge population lives within a 10 minute walk of the Gore. Some new draws will bring more of them to their own backyard again instead of driving out to the burbs.
I think Harry is here right on time. We've seen other groups investing downtown - the London Tap House is a huge signal IMO. These guys built Whistler for the most part...the fact they are investing huge here is an awesome sign.
The guy from TO doing the Foster building...again, 10 years ago that wasn't happening. Honest Lawyer has been a smashing success on a crappy stretch of King (as far as pedestrian space goes).
If Harry can get a hold of the lot next to Pigott and get LIUNA to do mega-residential beside both the Connaught and Lister I think we'll have finally reached that tipping point where even the most deadbeat, negative suburban Hamilton whiner will have no choice but to shut-up. Boy, I can't wait for that day.
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  #33  
Old Posted Dec 23, 2007, 8:15 PM
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realcity--going back 15 years to 1992 or 1993--the decline of downtown was in full swing--I would argue in some ways the early 1990s represented downtown's nadir--that is, the decline itself was in full swing and accelerating. The Tivoli had long since been abandoned by Famous Players and was sitting rotting under the ownership of Sam Sniderman at the time. The Hamilton Eaton Centre was never fully occupied--in fact, within only a year of opening the few retail stores on the third level all either closed up or moved downstairs. The Right House was only fully occupied with retail in the brief months after it re-opened in 1985 or 86--and by the early 90s it contained very little retail--in fact, even Tim Hortons wasn't open yet. Stelco Tower was in better shape at the time definitely--but that's because Stelco still occupied it--the departure of those offices had nothing at all to do with downtown--and yes, by the early 1990s the rot was setting in at Jackson Square--and Phase IV was closed off right around that time--I believe '94, in preparation for a charity casino that was never built.

Since that time there has been significant recovery in and around the core--James South, James North--more recently I Village and continued growth in Hess Village. For certain the immediate core area and Jackson Square still have a long way to go--but the decline itself is no longer precipitous and seemingly unstoppable.
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  #34  
Old Posted Dec 23, 2007, 8:45 PM
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if you talk with folks who owned shops or businesses downtown back in the 50's and 60's they'll tell you that the decline started after the one-way street conversion...it took a couple of decades to translate into boarded up windows and empty stores, but that's only because they had so far to fall it took 20 years.
I think we've already turned a corner downtown...a few well-done 'signature' projects downtown will send out a strong signal to everyone that we have in fact turned a corner.
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  #35  
Old Posted Dec 24, 2007, 2:18 PM
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I don't think there was any time when retail in Jackson Square could be described as thriving. It was moderately successful in the 70's and 80's, but the stores located there were never leaders for their chains. Commercial office space was much more successful, mainly due to the tenancy of Stelco and BMO, both of whom disappeared in the 90's.
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  #36  
Old Posted Dec 24, 2007, 3:31 PM
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I'm going back to before the 90s recession. I worked in Jackson sq and had friends in the Eaton Centre, who worked on the third floor. I agree the early 90s was a big hit for downtown. Except to say there was more nitelife than now. The return of clubs is positive with London Tap House and Honest Lawyers, replacing long gone Acropolis, Monopoli, Tonic, Texas Border, Rockabillys, Tailgate Charlies, corner of King Willian and John in the old World Gym, Main and Caroline, Fever. Two new clubs doesn't replace 6 lost. It's positive but we need 5 more Honest Lawyers downtown.

Before the 92 recession there was more retail downtown too. See earlier post. Hamilton was smart in creating high density population in the core or else it would've been a Buffalo. Those residential towers south of the core are what sustained it and made it less challenging today.

I don't think we've turned a corner from the late 80s yet. From the early 90s? yes. We need more retail and grocery, more office workers (a healthy low office vacancy rate), and more destinations (daytime and after hours). the only thing positive on everything is a growing residential.
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  #37  
Old Posted Dec 24, 2007, 3:37 PM
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I'm not a clubber, but isn't Tailgate Charlies still there??? and 77 replaced Texas Border, along with the underground space in the same building...The Casbah at LaLuna would fall into the 'newer' category along with some of the Hess spots - Funky Munky, Elixir etc....
I liked the fact that Harry Stinson talked about new office development too. Someone mentioned to him on-air that we need all-day GO Train service. He said "that would be nice, but there's no reason you can't have a functioning downtown with office/retail/residential all right here".
I've been saying that for years. It drives me nuts to hear the small-thinkers at city hall say things like "downtown will never be the centre of retail like it once was". Why not?? Cities like Boston, Portland and Toronto have regained/maintained their downtowns as the centre of retail.
I think it really bugs me when they say that because what they really mean is "we aren't committed enough to downtown to ever have it become the heart of our city again".

They know full well that it COULD, but they won't take us there because they don't care enough.
That's probably why Harry is gaining such attention...he talks like he cares about the downtown and historic buildings.... we aren't used to that in Hamilton - not from residents, politicians and most certainly, not developers.
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  #38  
Old Posted Dec 24, 2007, 3:49 PM
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Texas Border = 77/ Dirty Dogs / Underground
Tailgates is still there... there's also Liquid Kitty under it
Fever = Remedy
There's also Barcode which is an afterhours bar @ King William / John.

King William isn't the club district it once was, but it's far from dead.
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  #39  
Old Posted Dec 24, 2007, 4:11 PM
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Hmm--well, perhaps we remember history differently. When Phase IV of Jackson Square was completed in the mid 1980s the mall was entirely full--there was not a national chain that wasn't represented downtown. Some operators (including BMO) had multiple locations in the mall--the mall was thriving--Saturdays were absolutely packed and daily pedestrian traffic through the mall was 100,000 in the early 1980s.

As for office space--it was the departure (during bankruptcy) of Stelco and of Phillip Services that really hurt Stelco Tower. BMO's departure was glancing blow to pride perhaps--but has resulted in fairly little vacant space (3 floors of a small building). Don't forget both RBC and Bell have relocated TO Jackson Square. Again, it's important to remember that Commerce Place poached some tenants away from 100 King--and Commerce Place is maintained at Class A. A Class A redo of Stelco Tower and a full court press to fill the space are what's needed to rememdy the issue there--lure US Steel back, or for love of life, why not Dofasco-Arcelor-Mittal or whatever it's called now--has anyone ever seriously tried to lure them in?
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  #40  
Old Posted Dec 24, 2007, 5:48 PM
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Originally Posted by fastcarsfreedom View Post
A Class A redo of Stelco Tower and a full court press to fill the space are what's needed to rememdy the issue there--lure US Steel back, or for love of life, why not Dofasco-Arcelor-Mittal or whatever it's called now--has anyone ever seriously tried to lure them in?
No...Because the landlord has losers like this representing them:

"All that space was designed to house the kind of big companies that aren't here anymore. Stelco, Westinghouse, Firestone, you name it."

It would be a mistake to hope that the big companies will be coming back to town. "I've been waiting for that for 25 to 30 years," (David) Blanchard says. "It's not going to happen."
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