Quote:
Originally Posted by JHikka
There's no room for a 4Plex at Place 400/Harbour Station parking lots. Those options are not available. Besides, the Harbour Station area is on unstable ground..it was poor enough to build one ice pad there...four more would be a disaster. As well, no hockey facilities that I can think of utilizes a parkade/parking garage and the one being finished would not be large enough to accomodate the parking needed for a 4Plex.
In terms of Long Wharf it would get people in the Uptown area which is exactly what we want. Things like mixed-use and mixed-development can be consulted on once plans are in motion.
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A quick Photoshop job to illustrate that the LBR site is workable at the very least: I grabbed the Moncton 4-Plex building footprint from Bing maps at the same scale as the SJ image and rotated/flipped it to superimpose over the present LBR site. The corner jutting out into Hilyard Street could be eliminated by moving the lobby/concession area (the gray bit cutting horizontally across the building) to either flank of the site, and/or rotating one of the southern pads.
As for parking, just because most arenas don't have parking garages doesn't mean that no arena can. This is an opportunity to demonstrate that arenas don't have to be quite so space-inefficient.
Parking could be provided underneath the complex (judging from the size of Moncton's parking lot, I estimate only one level of underground parking would be necessary) or via a new structure on Place 400's parking lot, or a combination of the two. And if teams are staying at the Fort Howe Hotel or the Holiday Inn Express, they don't even need to get in their cars!
Throw in a decent architectural design that pays homage to the LBR's iconic Main Street facade (perhaps even preserving some of the existing structure) by incorporating glass and natural light, and you've got yourself an innovative facility we can be proud of without compromising our waterfront.
While my #1 preference remains the LBR site, I concede it would be more straightforward (and thus cheaper, notwithstanding whatever lease fees the Port will want to negotiate) to take the easy route and just plunk 'er down on Long Wharf. However, I am cynical about the prospect of pushing for mixed-use in a near-future planning process for Long Wharf due to the Port's own policies, particularly their charter's prohibition of residential uses.
That all being said, if the 4-Plex does move forward at Long Wharf and a comprehensive mixed-use development is off the table, here's what I would push for:
- A compact and innovative architectural design and layout worthy of its prime waterfront location. An Agar Place-style box should be avoided at all costs.
- Integration with a Long Wharf Cruise Terminal, as dhottawa suggested many pages ago.
- Retention of as much undeveloped land as possible closer to Harbour Passage to facilitate the development of mixed-use components in the future.
- A compact parking solution. I suppose in the short term we could make use of the retained land from the previous point.
- A publicly accessible waterfront promenade, at least on non-cruise days.
- High quality landscaping throughout, much like we saw with the Irving Oil HQ proposal. No more endless tarmac, please and thank you!
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