Quote:
Originally Posted by EndoftheBeginning
It's not closed - saw people inside yesterday.
Good thoughtful post on the OV Biz though. I've lived in OV for 25 years and find myself less and less involved in those things. That's probably natural as a person ages though - Canada Day becomes less about the party and more about the inconvenience and street closures and buses rumbling down your otherwise peaceful street. Had no idea about Taste the Village.
I'm not sure what it would take to get a better vibe going - I wish one of the side streets could develop into something like Rue Prince Arthur in Montreal or that there was a kind of urban square like Square St. Louis in Montreal. Places where the density of the area could congregate and focus on (even like Central Park in Winnipeg). To me, those kinds of places feel alive and central to the neighbourhoods they are in. OV has the strip, but it's not a place to linger because of traffic noise and lack of space for pedestrians. The off-block areas along River and Stradbrook east and west of Osborne provide that to some extent, but it's still quite limited.
What concerns me is how that space above Shoppers can still be vacant. How hard is it to lease out 5,500 sq. ft? It's even got a roof-top patio area. That is not a promising sign for the health of the neighbourhood (unless of course Shindico is trying to extract some unreasonable lease rate for the space and can afford to eat the vacancy cost until someone ponies up).
I guess this was less about the BIZ aspect, so circling around back to that, I don't see much value added service there. Maybe they need to be less outward focused (gather people City wide with the big festivals) and more inward focused to develop awareness among their local customer base. |
From what we heard about Anytime Fitness, it sounds like Shoppers is terrible to deal with and renting out their upstairs space isn't a priority. I don't want to say "I told you so" but the city should have never allowed Shoppers to trash a block like they did. I'd say the Village's current problems started then.
I do like your idea of a gathering space. I've been thinking lately that the city should consider closing one side of Gertrude or Wardlaw at Osborne to make a plaza, something like this:
https://www.google.ca/maps/@48.43048...2!8i6656?hl=en
Beyond that, the firehall needs to go, and the city needs to sell their parking lot at Stradbrook. Those are no brainers. They also need to de-freewayize the street itself. Restoring it to its older, slightly bendier configuration would help (and make the sidewalk next to Green Carrot actually wide enough) but even better would be narrowing Osborn to three lanes of traffic to make space for bike lanes.
Anyway, I'm not as gloomy about the Village as some of you. The beer vendor did close, so it is effectively dead to me, but in general the neighbourhood is in an awkward transition state. There actually are a handful of new places that have opened recently, and the old neighbourhood stalwarts are going as strong as ever. But it's no longer the bohemian heart of the city, nor is it the only safe urban neighbourhood for South Winnipeggers to visit. As it adjusts, it will thrive again.
I think, EndoftheBeginning, that you're on to something when you say that OV BIZ needs to start looking inward. They can no longer rely on a stream of suburbanites with nowhere else to go, but there's plenty within the Village to build on.
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