Quote:
Originally Posted by GreyGarden
"You can't rely on people coming downtown, you have to put them there..." that kind of thing. And what's interesting, is that you're essentially arguing that people shouldn't live at the Forks, and it should rely on people travelling from other parts of the city to use it.
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I agree and disagree with you here.
I agree that the development strategy shouldn't rest upon people coming downtown. Whether that comes in the form of residential or otherwise has yet to be decided.
Methinks that the BRT extension into Union station will certainly speed up the incoming proposals though...
Quote:
Originally Posted by GreyGarden
As we've seen time and time again in Winnipeg, and other cities, that model doesn't work that well.
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This is where I disagree with you. Having people travel downtown from the suburbs has been a common cadence since the burgeoning of the 'burbs in the 50's in all cities. Think of the expansions of Chicago, New York, Toronto, Vancouver, Ottawa, Calgary, Edmonton, etc; in those cities, they have each needed to develop a transit model to transport people from their suburbs into the core so that people can get to work on time. Specifically with Calgary and Edmonton, you can see that the downtown areas pretty much empty out after the late afternoon rush hour passes.
Reason why their evening downtowns deflate is because Edmonton and Calgary have a more concentrated employment centre in their immediate downtowns due to the oil booms in the last few decades, and each respective city had a stronger demand for suburb growth and housing. I compare these prairie cities because Winnipeg has a similar cadence.
Although tbf, there are more denser urban residential buildings being proposed in all 3 cities however I personally chalk that up to a housing cultural shift for the most part.
With Winnipeg, I feel that a lot of opportunities have been missed out to develop more employment centres in downtown because it is ultimately better for the developer to construct business parks way out in the suburbs (like Tuxedo park or the business park by Mcreary).
This then starts to
decentralize Winnipeg's employment centres and it will therefore change commuter patterns to take on a less organized structure having workers commute to far flung corners of the city as opposed to one concentrated employment centre (like most Canadian cities do). Another side effect of this kind of development is that it stagnates the growth of downtown by redirecting it to other areas of the city, therefore making developers to believe that downtown Winnipeg has grown stale since it can't attract new business tenants who want to purchase and redevelop a parking lot. And this then leads to the belief that downtown is undesirable.
The issue is that Winnipeg has been swelling its downtown from 9-5 with mainly the
same volume of workers for the last 30 years with minimal employment developments. When you increase your employment centre
(for example, like concentrating new office developments) in an area then that employment centre will in turn create demands for amenities like gyms that operate after 5pm or cafes open before 7, or restaurants that serve an awesome lunch. And then with those amenities, more people will want to live in an area that gives them access to these amenities.
If Winnipeg placed all of the business in the Business Tuxedo park and on Mcreary road into downtown, we would have a more vibrant downtown from 9-5 at the very least
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Personally I think that the city allowed this to happen so that they wouldn't have to think hard on transit solutions for the next 10 years but I digress...
With the Forks, we kind of have to work in reverse. Because you have this awesome amenity
(and IMO, it is the best part of the city) that could be better supported by almost any development be it office, residential, or another amenity of some sort. But if you were a developer that was clued in on the BRT expansion beyond Harkness station, you would probably purchase the land and sit on it and wait until the city consults the public and secures their funding before deciding what to propose. Because an operable Union station would be a huge selling point.
Personally, I would like to see a retail(and/or office)/residential mix in the Forks much like what
Chilliwack BC is planning for their future... faux heritage, people oriented, and a little taller (I'm thinking 6-8 floors). I would also be open to an additional museum amenity (of some kind) along with a plan that aims to be more people oriented.
But we have to get out of the mindset of thinking that we need the "egg before the chicken" or vice versa, and we should aim to make downtown Winnipeg economical above all else. Any kind of economic boom to downtown Winnipeg will indirectly support the Forks with more business whether it be 9-5 office workers heading there for lunch, workers heading to the bar after work.
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