Quote:
Originally Posted by scryer
But yeah, moving the food court needs to happen. It's just straight-up unsafe at this point.
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The biggest issue with the Portage Place food court is that security needs to actively work to minimize loitering and outside food. One evening I had stopped there for something and noticed one of the other tables basically brought a picnic from home and appeared to be setting up to use the food court as a meeting place for the evening.
A good example to follow is City Place. It is about three blocks away and a word of difference. It isn't so much actively chasing people out but being a bit of a visible presence and telling people this isn't a free community space to hang out for extended periods.
Quote:
Originally Posted by esquire
Yup, pretty well every Tim's and Starbucks locations has people who do this... Portage Place is really no different.
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What is different between a suburban Starbucks and the Portage Place food court is the Starbucks the loitering people are usually young, somewhat attractive, almost always female and mostly white. The food court is much more ethnically diverse, appears to be lots of more recent immigrants and they might be speaking languages that are not English. The general perception on Portage Place in general has a bit of racism underneath the surface.
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In terms of relatively quick fix solutions for Portage Place? Start with taking a page from the St James Costco. Hire off duty police officers to have an active and visible presence in the open market street drug market out back. Just the visible presence alone will likely be enough to "encourage" those people to move on. Establish a visible presence for security in the food court and start asking people to move on. If the problem still persists do a "renovation" to more of a single patron seating (bar style) instead of tables. Also consider hiring a social worker to work with people frequenting the food court similar to what is being done at the Millennium Library. Do a full on reno to remove the food court bus shelter and work with transit to eliminate that stop completely. Also close the bus shelter over on Vaghaun.
Portage Place may also want to engage Downtown Watch, WPS and the Air Canada Building/APTN to coordinate their efforts, re the drug market, to proactively take steps to ensure it doesn't relocate to the park at Carlton and Portage Ave.
It is never going to be too great a shopping destination but it could at least achieve a similar presence to City Place and Winnipeg Square.