The only real way that downtown will grow and evolve is to add more people. Apparently the trillium has very few units left and the King's Wharf project is selling well (I am waiting for one of the taller buildings to come on the market to put in an offer).
With more people an evolution of downtown will occur:
- You will see more people taking the ferry across the harbour to work;
- Businesses that once struggled on the weekends will start seeing better business numbers and expand;
- More NEW businesses will open up;
- Downtown will start having vitality and life again because there will be people in it; all the time;
- Transit service will be busy all week long versus just the rush hours or for special events.
That's just a quick list of things I could think of - but with more people in the core; lots of this will occur. If you take locations outside of the viewplanes or get rid of the Brightwood viewplane in Dartmouth; I could easily see adding at least 20,000 on the Halifax side and the same if not more on the Dartmouth side. Why that industrial parcel by King's Wharf - if redeveloped; alone could probably bring about 5 to 8,000.
Then if you add in redevelopment of areas such as Agricola Street, the Robie Street Car dealership and the quinpool road corridor - I suspect you could probably add another 15 to 20,000 in those areas too. With them being so close to the core; people would probably visit downtown more too.