Wanted: uptown renaissance
John Mazerolle
Telegraph-Journal
Published Thursday June 14th, 2007
Appeared on page C1
Common council needs to know that a vibrant, well-populated downtown core is key to the city's success, and it's up to Uptown Saint John to make that case clear, the group's leadership says.
"I think it's a matter of making it easy for council to understand the issues and understand the solutions," said Peter Asimakos, general manager of Uptown Saint John, which promotes economic development on behalf of the uptown's merchants and property owners. "We have to do our homework and present what the case is, and maybe do it in a stronger fashion than we have in the past."
In an editorial board meeting with the Telegraph-Journal, Asimakos and Dick Daigle, the group's president, made the case for a downtown that is denser with people and real estate than any other part of the city. They argue that spreading businesses and people throughout the Greater Saint John area only weakens the region.
Focusing on the downtown's look, culture, parking and infrastructure is necessary to attract skilled workers to the uptown and to the city generally, because those workers can choose any city they like, Daigle said.
"If you start losing your densification and start spreading things out, then what you do is you're not in a position to support the vibrancy, you're not in a position to support the restaurants in the uptown," said the Pizza Hut owner. "You lose what you'd like to become."
Improving existing infrastructure in the uptown is better than building new infrastructure elsewhere and needing more maintenance later on, Daigle said. "If you have too many things spread all over the place, you can't support them all."
Uptown Saint John's priorities for the uptown include improved streetscapes, more use of building's upper floors, more residents, and improved parking.
The city is planning to build a large parking garage as part of the planned justice-police complex off Union Street, but Asimakos said Uptown Saint John believes that several smaller, strategically placed parking complexes would be better to support residential development and businesses within specific neighbourhoods. Several two- or three-storey garages could be built and added onto later, rather than a six- or seven-storey garage in one location, he said.
Daigle said the city still plans to build a larger structure, but Uptown Saint John hopes to continue letting its views be known by becoming part of the parking commission.
At the same time, both men said that a glut of empty parking spaces in the core would not be a good sign. "Any downtown centre that's worth its salt has parking issues, because there are people who want to be there," Daigle said.
Asimakos, who was quick to thank council and was uncomfortable criticizing the city, still said that the road work throughout the city is not prioritized properly. "There isn't any big rationale for doing construction projects, like there should be," he said. "We should use that huge (capital) budget for infrastructure to be a catalyst for economic development as well."
The group's focus lately has been Princess Street, an important business-lined street that's crumbling in places. Work will start on the street next summer, but will take place over multiple years until 2011, one block at a time. Asimakos said the entire project, which includes placing wiring underground, should be completed in one or two construction seasons.
"We talked to contractors, major contractors in the city, and confirmed that (if) you mobilize your equipment and get to two or three blocks at a time, it's a . . . lot cheaper than it is to do one block at a time," he said.
(Paul Groody, the city's commissioner of operations and engineering, has said the project is an expensive one, with about $1 million going toward the first block next year. Deputy Mayor Michelle Hooton tried to convince council to support work on the street in 2007, but other council members, particularly councillors Glen Tait and Ivan Court, argued successfully that streets throughout the city needed work.)
Daigle said the long-term goal would be to eliminate overhead wiring from the uptown. Uptown Saint John has standards for the city, including keeping the sidewalks trimmed with brick, and it's the group's responsibility to hold them to that standard, he said.
Asimakos notes that cities such as Portland, Me., lay more expensive cobblestones and granite curbs. "It's not like we're asking for the world here."
A program Uptown Saint John wants to see reintroduced is incentives for in-fill development. In the past the city offered a grant of 15 per cent of the land value to people who developed in-fill, Asimakos said. He wants to see that done again.
Once the uptown gets a few hundred residential units, the incentive won't be necessary anymore. "You need something to get that fire lit," he said.
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Saint John would get a charge from a second nuclear reactor
Ashley Joannou
Telegraph-Journal
Published Friday June 15th, 2007
Appeared on page C1
A second reactor built at Point Lepreau could not only create more energy but also re-energize the city's labour market and population.
When Premier Shawn Graham announced Wednesday that New Brunswick must speed up a feasibility study on the possibility of a second reactor at the nuclear generating station on the Bay of Fundy, people across the city started imagining what the project might mean for them.
For Ross McLean it would mean a better chance of staying in Saint John to work and be with his family and friends.
The electrical engineering student, who just finished his second year at the University of New Brunswick Saint John, said many people in his program have been forced to leave the province to find work once they get their degree.
"I think a lot of people who want to stay in Saint John could now with these jobs," he said. "People do end up having to leave because there aren't enough jobs for the people who want them."
Currently UNBSJ has 120 students taking one of nine engineering programs including electrical, mechanical and civil engineering.
Those students start their education at the Saint John campus but move to Fredericton for the last two or three years to finish their degrees.
Chris Diduch, chairman of the electrical and computer engineering department at UNB in Fredericton, estimates his department loses about 70 per cent of its graduates to jobs outside the province.
"It's been common knowledge for some time now that (a second reactor) was a possibility," he said. "Right now students leave primarily because they can't find work, there are jobs around but they're not always enough."
Point Lepreau currently employs more than 700 people, 500 of whom live in Greater Saint John.
Together those employees contribute more than $18 million annually to the area's economy, NB Power says.
Heather MacLean, an NB Power spokeswoman, said it was far too early in the process to estimate how many new people would be hired if a second reactor was built.
"We haven't even done the feasibility study," she said. "There's no way of knowing what kind of people would need to be hired if this happened."
But that doesn't stop Mayor Norm McFarlane from being almost giddy with joy.
"When you get good-paying jobs, the effect of that would be tremendous. You would need more restaurants, more places to shop. It would have a much bigger effect than just on the people who got the jobs."
The mayor said having these kind of jobs in Saint John would help increase the city's population, which he said has been stagnant.
"Employees bring their families with them," he said. "I don't think we can bring back all the people who have left to go west but we might be able to prevent the second wave from leaving."
McFarlane believes it would take four to five years to have the reactor up and running if the province gives the green light.
Pat Darrah, executive director of the Saint John Construction Association, agrees with that estimate.
But before the first watt of electricity left the reactor, Darrah said the city's construction industry would get a jolt from building a new reactor.
Any the industry is ready for it.
"We have the experience and the expertise and the people who are excited to get the work done," he said.
Darrah said construction of the first reactor at Point Lepreau required 3,500 people and 70 to 100 contractors and brought "thousands and thousands" of dollars to Saint John's economy.
Capt. Al Soppitt, president and chief exeuctive officer of the Saint John Port Authority, said the port is ready to accept the supplies required for construction.
"We're always keeping our ears to the ground when it comes to project like these," he said. "When construction starts the ships start coming in and we will be ready for them."
It is this potential for growth that made Ross McLean choose engineering as a career.
"There seems to be a lot of growth in the industry. The jobs are starting to become available and the salaries are really starting to rise," he said. "The fact that I can be part of growth like that, and do it from close to home, is great."
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