City’s core headed in right direction
Steve Arnold
http://www.thespec.com/news/business/article/305911--city-s-core-headed-in-right-direction
Ron Marini had barely settled into his new job as director of Hamilton’s downtown renewal project when The Spectator hit the streets with a multi-part series on the problems of vacant buildings and crime that were crippling the core of the city.
Now, a decade later and on the eve of his retirement, Marini can look at that list of problems and point to real progress in the long fight to drive the rot from the core.
The former planning director of the City of Stoney Creek during the days of regional government, Marini was named downtown director in 2000 when the new amalgamated City of Hamilton was formed.
“We knew that there were some serious issues to be addressed right from the start,” he said.
Charged with overseeing the revival of the core area bounded by Queen, Victoria, Cannon and Hunter streets, with a spine running up James Street from LIUNA Station to St. Joseph’s Hospital, Marini tackled the problem by looking for a series of victories, rather than a knockout mega project.
It started with an exercise asking when was the core of Hamilton at its best?
Some participants remembered the 1996 Grey Cup, some talked about the 2003 World Cycling Championships – but a common theme to all the memories was a time when people came into the core and felt safe.
“Everybody said downtown was just a rocking place then,” Marini recalled. “We had tents set up and everybody felt safe.
“That was the empirical experience. We asked what did we do to create that. That was the challenge to ferret out from the property standards people, bylaw people to see what they did during those times.”
Seeing a goal, the next challenge was to get city council to agree to spend the money needed to achieve that vision. Councillors got behind the project – led by then-Ward 2 councillor Andrea Horwath.
“We had to identify the level of service and the dollars needed to reach that level of service,” he said. “It took about seven years to get council to approve the numbers needed to move those yardsticks. Council has been very receptive and responsive and responsible.”
Making people feel safe in the core of Hamilton required the co-operation of several city departments, with a heavy reliance on the police.
“They really worked to make the downtown a ‘no go zone’ for a lot of bad actors. People were being made uncomfortable downtown by a lot of things,” Marini said. A frail elderly woman could feel threatened by a skateboarder or someone riding a bicycle on the sidewalk while others could feel uncomfortable by a group of people standing around in front of a building.
He knew he was making progress when the property manager of two important downtown buildings voluntarily said she felt the atmosphere had improved.
“That’s one of our major, major accomplishments, to get a lot of bad actors out of downtown.”
Another was to drive out of the core some businesses that weren’t making it the kind of place people would want to come.
“The city spent money wisely getting rid of businesses we really didn’t want downtown, businesses that didn’t give us the right impression about being downtown,” he said, noting an important victory was getting a — out of the core.
That building is to be replaced by a housing project with money put up by the city.
Several housing projects in the core have helped to boost the area’s image.
Another major victory will be getting a grocery store back in the heart of the city – something Marini said may happen soon on land near the police headquarters.
Infrastructure projects, such as the redevelopment of the Farmers’ Market, while keeping the existing merchants together in vacant parts of Jackson Square, have also been important steps.
“Look at York Boulevard now and it’s a completely different street with an entirely different feel. When people start patronizing the area it will get even better,” he said.
More important steps may be available now, Marini said, with the stadium debate almost finished. That could free up money from the city’s Future Fund for important projects in the core.
“There has been momentum. Maybe now with the stadium decisions there’s a chance to use money from the Future Fund for important projects downtown,” he said. “If we were able to lever money out of the Future Fund for this we could really accomplish something for the core.”
Some of those projects could involve financial aid for getting more educational institutions in the core. McMaster University already has its continuing education division in the old courthouse but further projects have been pushed to the back burner by the school’s focus on its newly opened Burlington campus. Until then there may also be an opportunity to get Mohawk or Redeemer University College downtown.
After 10 years of effort downtown Hamilton today houses a workforce of 23,000 people. Many are government workers, following a city council decision to make the downtown the governance centre for the region. About 71 per cent of the workers hold well-paid, full-time jobs. That’s important because those workers could be the honey that attracts specialty shops to the area.
“These aren’t part-time jobs. They’re very well paid,” he said. “It’s not a shrinking workforce. It’s an increasing workforce.
“Downtown has always been for specialty shopping, the things you can’t find in malls.”
The current office vacancy rate in the core is about 12.5 per cent – shy of council’s goal of 10 per cent “but heading in the right direction,” Marini said.
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