Quote:
Originally Posted by Acajack
If I were Place d'Orléans management I might be concerned about Target eventually packing up and moving to Innes as well.
I know people will say that with all the development southwards that Innes will someday be at the centre of Orleans, but it still seems weird to me that so much of the shopping in a community is concentrated in one extremity. I mean, from some places in northeast Orleans, the businesses on the Innes strip are almost as far as St Laurent Shopping Centre, and probably take longer to get to because of all of the stoplights. It just doesn't make sense from a community planning standpoint, and is even more stupid when you consider that Orleans already had a main shopping strip and "heart" on St Joseph. Place d'Orléans stole some thunder from St Joseph but at least it was along the same axis.
This "jettisoning" of an established main street in favour a new one is just soooo reminescent of the worst planning decisions made by so many cities over the past few decades, and explains why you now have decline and blight on many commercial streets even in fairly prosperous suburbs in the US.
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I agree with you, St Joseph is a central location in Orleans, it's the heart of Orleans for all intents and purposes and it would have made most sense to develop it as the "downtown" of Orleans.
I think St Joseph is a bit beaten up and worn down, but I would have preferred a complete renovation to bring it up to modern day standards. But, like with every decision this city makes, I think it came to down to the bottom line, and the bottom line was that it was cheaper to develop undeveloped land than it was to redevelop St Joseph. A lot of the buildings on St Joseph fit right into the Ugly Ottawa thread on here and need to be demolished IMO.
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