WINDSOR | Construction - News and Development

[arnold]

Originally Posted by westerntragedy

Otherwise known as the Welcome Center/Snack Stand. Here's a link: Cleary Guest House (click)

oh... i thought that this was already long gone to make way for the peace beacon. where does the peace beacon sit?

i remember steering well clear of that building when i was down there in the summertimes because it had that kind of 'public bathroom' look and feel to it... i can't imagine that it will really be missed when its gone.

[westerntragedy]

yeah, what I mean is it's long gone, and it looks weird since it's not there.

[Blitz]

The new bus terminal is really nice!

[upinottawa]

Growing up in Essex County I would have loved this (assuming it gets off the ground):

Countywide transit touted
Warden, mayor press for regional bus service

Grace Macaluso, Windsor Star
Published: Wednesday, July 25, 2007

Windsor and Essex County could enjoy the level of funding that has benefited Go Transit, the service that feeds commuters from the suburbs to Toronto, if area politicians can agree to establish a regional transit system, County Warden Nelson Santos said Tuesday.

Earlier this year, the province announced $1.6 billion for GO Transit.

"I can foresee a similar announcement if we pool our resources toward a regional service," said Santos. "We should be thinking about inventing a regional transit authority."

Santos and Windsor Mayor Eddie Francis have been touting the benefits of a region-wide transit system, saying the time is right.

Public pressure stemming from soaring gas prices and environmental concerns is mounting, said Santos.

"I don't think a day goes by without someone talking abut the need for transit service in the county," said Santos. "You have university or college students, seniors and residents who want to take day trips for things like shopping, or tourist areas like Point Pelee.

"Developers and potential developers often ask about transit services," said Santos, the mayor of Kingsville. "They'd like to know whether their employees would have access to take buses to and from work."

He said a meeting aimed at kick-starting talks is been planned and would include mayors from the county and Windsor, as well as chief administrative officers of the municipalities.

Although no date has been set, Santos said he hopes it can be held next month. "We want to use the meeting to table discussions and explore opportunities toward initiating a transit system."

Francis recently expressed frustration at the inability to reach a consensus, saying that some municipalities would prefer to act alone. Both Lakeshore and Amherstburg have expressed an interest in Transit Windsor service. But Francis said expansion talks should be held between the city and the entire county.

Transit Windsor general manager Penny Williams said any expansion would have to be funded by county taxpayers. In the city, taxpayers make up 40 per cent of Transit Windsor's budget, while the rest if funded by users, she said.

John Skorobohacz, Windsor's chief administrative officer, said a regional transit service would offer multiple benefits. "It's good for economic development, its good for the environment and good for regional co-operation and future opportunities for tourism," he said.

"In the not-to-distant future we're going to have a bustling convention centre, bringing in businesses and families of convention visitors," he added.

ABOUT GO

GO Transit is Canada's first, and Ontario's only, inter-regional public transit system, linking Toronto with the surrounding regions of the Greater Toronto Area. It carries 49 million passengers a year in an extensive network of train and bus services. Since GO began operating in May 1967, over one billion people have taken the GO Train or bus. For more information, go online at http://www.gotransit.com.




© The Windsor Star 2007

[Janbe]

Does anyone have pictures of the progress on the New Windsor Arena?.

[arnold]

regional transit sounds like a great idea. it's just too bad that not everyone is getting on board.

i used to use GO quite a lot to get around toronto and even though it can take a while to make it out into the furthest reaches of the suburbs, the service is vital.

and the coach-style buses that they use go a long way to attract a professional, middle class demographic that would probably never otherwise ride a city-style bus or greyhound. it could be a really good service for people who commute in from the county into downtown.

[Blitz]

I don't think they've actually started the arena yet. Just a pile of dirt right now.

[upinottawa]

I was in Windsor last weekend and I cannot get over how large the addition to the casino is. The theatre/convention centre is huge.

With the new addition, Caesars Windsor should be a huge draw for Canadian conventions. That being said, downtown Windsor still has a long way to go to make the city's core a desirable and interesting place for those attending such conferences. In my opinion, the city should be doing whatever it can to encourage more retail options in the core -- especially on Ouellette.

[Blitz]

I think the addition is too large but I guess it will be a positive thing overall. I'm sure the city has financial incentives to get retailers downtown but it's difficult. The new streetscaping looks good. There was a decent Henderson article today about the new arena.

[yupislyr]

Yeah, there's a webcam of the arena construction here:

http://70.55.239.138/view_login.html

[upinottawa]

I agree that the addition looks a little too large (also, it must suck to have a southfacing apartment in that building just north of the addition -- especially if you are on the lower level).

I understand that the addition will have a "shopping area". Any word if this "shopping area" is going to be internal or will it have street front access and displays? I hope it is the latter.

I am confident that this new convention centre will be a significant draw considering the entertainment and hotel options in the same facility. In fact, I would suspect that no other Canadian city of a similar population can boast such a facility. That being said, there needs to be plenty of nearby options to eat, shop, be entertained outside the many walls of the casino if Windsor is going to capitalize on the new conference facility.

[Janbe]

The webcam is not working. Is there program thats needed?

[arnold]

i agree. downtown windsor was looking pretty sore when i was in town last winter. at the moment, if i was a conventioneer (sp?) there wouldn't be a whole lot to draw me away from the casino and into the core. maybe the river front when the weather was nice. and the AGW for sure. but the entire downtown strip needs some real TLC if they hope to capitalize on the casino expansion.

and truth be told, i'm more that a little disappointed in the local windsor government. there must be something that could be done to kickstart the redevelopment of downtown, and its seemed that its always been just around the corner... and yet 5 years after i moved away, its in worse shape now than it was before i left. how does that happen when places like london have been making such fantastic strides with their downtown?

[Blitz]

^ I think the main difference with London is that they've been building a lot of residential towers in their downtown.

For the lands near the gallery, I'm not sure what would be best there...I can see positives for both an urban village and the university engineering campus.

[westerntragedy]

The new arena has definitely been started fortunately (whether they're on schedule or not is heh, we shall see). Most of the lower level has been excavated and girder work is up for the Community Centre/Seniors Centre end.

[yupislyr]

Originally Posted by Janbe

The webcam is not working. Is there program thats needed?

Yeah it's working, although you may have to use IE. It wouldn't work for me in Firefox.

[Happy Habib]

U of W gets $40 million

Province invests in new engineering school, but location is still unknown
Craig Pearson, The Windsor Star
Published: Sunday, August 19, 2007
The Ontario government announced this morning a $40 million investment in a high-tech, long-awaited University of Windsor engineering school.

A news conference with Windsor cabinet ministers Sandra Pupatello and Dwight Duncan, as well as Essex MPP Bruce Crozier, was held at 9 a.m. on campus at Essex Hall, which currently houses engineering, chemistry and physics labs.

University of Windsor officials had asked the province to contribute toward the $110-million building, which could be as large as 300,000 square feet and would be the most technologically advanced facility on campus.

Marty Komsa, chairman of the school's board of governors, said the new school's location will be announced at a later date. Originally, the school was to be located on Wyandotte Street West, but there has been speculation the university is now considering a downtown location after being approached by Mayor Eddie Francis.




An expanded engineering school would help diversify the Windsor economy in the face of declining manufacturing jobs.

"It's certainly something that's going to let us compete successfully in a knowledge-based economy," Francis said. "And when it's knowledge-based, the university always has a role to play."

Last November, Pupatello and Duncan announced that the province would chip in $2 million toward the design costs of the new building, which has been in the works for five years.

At the time, officials said a new engineering facility would be by far the largest structure on campus and could open by 2009 - with such features as roof-topped windmills, a treed central atrium enclosed by solar glass, and a green roof designed to catch rainwater.

Essex Hall, the current home of engineering, opened in 1961 to serve 30 faculty and 350 students.

Officials have said the the first phase of the new building would cost $53 million - and would be built on the southeast corner of Sunset Avenue and Wyandotte Street.

But Mayor Francis suggested the new building could be built downtown, around the Art Gallery of Windsor. The argument was that it made sense to build both phases of the sprawling facility at the same time, at a total cost of $110 million, to accommodate 1,500 students.

Publically, the project has been in limbo since March - awaiting news on possible government funding.

Windsor architect Joe Passa, who worked on the design of environmentally friendly Phase 1 with the Toronto-based lead architectural firm Bregmann and Hammon, hopes the McGuinty government will make the $110-million project a reality.

"I'm surmising it's obviously a good news announcement because they're making a big deal about it," said Passa, who questions whether the Phase 1 design for campus could be incorporated on a downtown site. "Whether it's at the downtown site or at the university I don't know."

[Border City Boy]

A few recent shots of the Casino Expansion:

[Happy Habib]

I'm actually quite optimistic about this conference center expansion- I travel a lot for work (mostly conferences) and have seen first hand what a well managed conference center could do for a downtown core. Take for example San Antonio- That conference center single handedly keeps that downtown alive (even though it is a big monolithic structure as well) There is always spill out that will happen (mind you they are not connected to a casino or many restaurants like the in Windsor) but There is a downtown mall and a river walk (all restaurants) that are kept alive by convention goers. Mind you that their actual space is about 4 times larger than what Windsor will have but most of the conventions I go to rarely use even half of their available space there. Most of the other facilities (theater, ball rooms etc are similar) the only thing they do better is provide a direct pedestrian overpass to the mall across the street.

[arnold]

i don't know about putting the engineering building down on a prime piece of waterfront property like that... there must be other locations in or near downtown that could suffice for a building like that, while saving the AGW site for residential/commercial.
sounds like they're going to squander another opportunity to bring more residents downtown...