Spring Tease in Gore Park
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In Gore Park on a blue-sky afternoon, it is cold in the shade, but at times the sunshine feels nearly warm — the annual spring tease that is March. The park slumbers, offering nothing but promise.
It is quiet, certainly more quiet than in the past, with the eight bus stops that used to be here having moved to the new MacNab Street bus terminal.
With the first day of spring 10 sleeps away, talk renews about the venerable park’s future. Or, rather, when and how that future should arrive.
The city’s ultimate vision for the park that sits smack in the heart of the city, detailed in the Gore Park Master Plan, is transforming it into a bustling pedestrian spot, including turning the south side of King Street East into a pedestrian-only walkway.
The city had committed $200,000 toward a pedestrian pilot project there, but, in a tough budget year, council pulled that money, deferring it till next year.
Undaunted, Kathy Drewitt, the executive director of the Downtown BIA, is forging ahead. She is calling on local merchants and artists to register interest in a Summer Market program that would run each week from June into early September, on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.
She envisions an open air market with local businesses manning vendor stalls: booksellers to antique and collectible sellers, baked goods, flower shops, plus musicians and artists added to the mix.
She said that, with better security in the area (40 police officers added to the core) and noise and pollution from the buses gone, the initiative will be “part of the turning point for focusing people’s attention back into Gore Park and the core.”
In addition, Drewitt is calling on council to put that $200,000 back on the table so the pedestrian pilot project can start to be implemented, with amenities added in the space to attract more people to the area.
As part of that, she wants the south side of King East from Hughson to James — just over 100 paces long — to be pedestrian-only during Summer Market days each week.
“I’m going back at them again to see if they will change their minds,” she said. “We want to show the city that there is a willingness to get the ball rolling on this and move ahead with it this year. We’re willing to co-ordinate the vendors, they just need to come back to the table with a plan to close the street and manipulate the environment to make it pleasing for summer.”
Drewitt likely faces an uphill battle convincing council to restore the funding. For one thing, while “pedestrianization” of the south side of King remains the future vision, revenue is being generated from interim on-street parking on the south side where the buses no longer roam.
Mayor Bob Bratina said metered parking there has been “an amazing success,” with February revenues from the 28 parking spaces netting $2,400. He said parking there should be allowed to remain at least through the summer.
He suggested that, in the long term, closing that side of the street to cars in favour of pedestrians can work, but the setting has to be right, and that is contingent upon such things as development of hotels downtown to bring more people traffic, and also cleaning up the north side of King Street East.
In the absence of these steps, “closing off that street would be the death knell of the businesses that are left there … that are hanging by a thread.”
Whether or not council backs Drewitt’s call to restore the funding, city officials vow to support her Summer Market initiative as much as possible.
Staff in the community services department will put together an information package about how to rent Gore Park for public events such as the market. Temporary closures of the south leg of King Street would require council approval, but staff will develop ways to streamline this process, as well.
Jeff Valentine, who is co-owner of Jet Café on King East, loves the Summer Market idea and has registered his interest with the BIA in setting up a gourmet coffee stall and sausage cart.
“Anything that brings excitement and interest and new people downtown is great,” he said.
One restaurateur whose place sits on the south side of King Street expressed concern that food vendors in the park this summer could take business away from him, rather than stimulate more of it. He added he’s lost business since the bus stops were removed from the street.
Richard Harris, a geography professor at McMaster, said the BIA should be applauded for such efforts in Gore Park.
“At some point, there will be a critical mass of people and interest to make it work, and it may be that new signs of life nearby, such as James Street North, are enough to do the job,” he said. “Symbolically, Gore Park is very important. There’s no other place that can offer a clearer signal of the revival of Hamilton’s downtown.”
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