Centre Mall -> The Centre on Barton

[raisethehammer]

Originally Posted by omro

Is there a life span for Centre Mall in it's new incarnation? Is it being built in a way that will be easy to demolish and redesign in 5, 10 or 20 years time if needs be?

The thing that shocks me the most, when I look at the mock ups, is the amount of space that is devoted to car parks. I'm surprised they didn't look into underground or multi level parking. It seems like a lot of wasted space that could have been used for landscaping and more retail.

I don't want to give you any last minute jitters about your big move, but WELCOME TO HAMILTON! Lol. Get used to lots of wasted space for cars.

How silly of me to want a streetwall where none previously existed. Please forgive my ignorance.

Omro - this place will be easy to demolish next year if necessary. I love the new term - disposablism.

Fastcars - no kidding about maximizing profits. They maximize profits by wasting public resources. Great business model in a fascist society where the government, media and corporations do what they please.

Fastcars - also, please stop making the baseless claim that Ottawa St will benefit from this. Ottawa St started climbing out of the doldrums YEARS ago. Any new customers in this part of town for the big boxes won't come to Ottawa St. It goes against everything they've come to expect in life - free parking spaces surrounding a bland warehouse. They don't know how to parallel park on a city street, let alone put money in a meter!! gasp!!
It's two completely different clientele. The only people frequenting both will be people in the area who already frequent both.

I can speak up and proudly say I don't remember the last time I shopped in a big box. One of the reasons I moved downtown was to get away from them. I knew we had a crappy city council, but I gave them too much credit - I really never thought that the big boxes would follow me and start surrounding downtown like the children of Israel around Jericho. It's only a matter of time before the trumpet sounds and downtown is completely destroyed.