Quote:
Originally Posted by flar
^^that's good. Downtown is the place to be if you don't have a car in London. I can't imagine how alienating it would be to live in a highrise at Oxford and Wonderland or down by Westmount if you relied on the bus.
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I live in Westmount and rely on the bus! Every day in and out to downtown, it's about a 40 minute ride each way due to traffic (non rush is about 20 minutes)...
Its fine and all, but yes, having a car would be much better, especially in winter months.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ssiguy
The City of London doesn't know which way to look.
Great news that people are moving downtown but at the same time they are encouraging a mega-SilverCity at Westmount.
London should not allow any new theatres south of Baseline, north of Oxford, west of Wharncliff, east of Adelaide to make downtown the true centre of London entertainment.
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While the new westmount theatre is technically "new", they ARE removing the old one.. so it's essentially a replacement to modernize the tiny 6screen theater, as well as save what's left of Westmount mall.
Also, speaking of Westmount, the old beer store is completely gone, and they've broken ground for the new theater, you can now clearly see the construction area of the new theater from wonderland rd... It's expected to become even more visible once the old theater has ceased operations (not sure when that will be, I imagine not until the new theater has begun construction, probably not until it's ready).
Quote:
Originally Posted by QuantumLeap
In a way, I agree with the above post. It is bad policy to develop only downtown. Although I strongly disagree with sprawl, I am in favour of neighbourhood renewal. Every part of the already bulit-up city (roughly but not exactly South of Sunningdale, East of Hyde Park, West of Crumlin, North of 401) should be the object of renewal and intensification projects. Every neighbourhood (and by neighbourhood I mean an area of which maybe there are 50-100 in the city) should have at least one really high-quality meeting place (a park, a square, a nice mall), some places to eat, a few local stores et c. In this way I have no objection to having a cinema at Westmount or elsewhere. But given this principle, I would like to see more small one and two screen cinemas and fewer "The Cinema Complex That Will Serve Everything From Detroit to Hamilton" sorts of places.
Furthermore, to a large extent, I agree with the planning principle that allows what is already in a place to continue existing, unless it is truly noxious. The cinema at Westmount obviously passed this test.
My main objections then, are as follows:
1. The new Westmount does nothing to improve the streetscape and actually create a pedestrian-friendly Wonderland Rd. It doesn't provide any public places, isn't designed to support transit. It isn't designed to better integrate the surrounding neighbourhood.
2. The new Westmount does not include any non-retail employment or more importantly, residential space. This lack of robustness was the cause of the downfall of the mall in the first place.
3. The city has not addressed the other cause of the downfall of the mall, the hideous and continuing sprawl corners of Wharncliffe, Southdale and Wonderland.
4. The cinema shouldn't have been allowed to increase the number of screens. The last SilverCity was (in retrospect) quite clearly an attempt to kill the Galleria and the Capitol. To a large extent, it worked. The plan of Famous Players/ Cineplex is obviously to kill what little paltry competition exists still in the city (Hyland, Rainbow and UWO) and to keep the Toronto players like AMC out. Certain areas of the city need a few screens - Southeast London and Northwest London notably. Central could also use a few more screens, especially as another activity-generator downtown.
BUT MOST IMPORTANTLY.
5. Notwithstanding the specific issues of Westmount, the Planning Dept and Council are generally unwilling to address two major issues: sprawl (no further discussion needed) and overbuilding in general. There is really no problem in overbuilding of housing, and not a huge issue with industrial (still there is to some extent, but it mainly has to do with WHERE new industrial is built). The City needs to regulate how much retail, restaurant space, office space, hotels, cinemas et c. because otherwise they will be overbuilt, which we have seen in droves. It is much cheaper for companies to build new than to renovate (amazingly), and they are especially willing to do this to steal each other's market share. The people who lose out are the neighbours, who either get unnecessary construction or unnecessary blight, and the taxpayers, who still are partially funding this building. If the city bothered to pay attention to how much commercial building they were allowing and where, they would realize that the construction rate is at least twice the demand. People's retail budgets and square footage demands are shrinking, and the population is not growing all that quickly. There is a major gap in policy that needs to be filled.
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I've got to disagree with some of your points,
1. They're doing what they can with existing space, there is too much residential area to procure any more land to help with some of your points about incorporation into the surrounding areas. They are building a new bus terminal which is detached from the mall to better help traffic flow, they're tearing down the old TD/Westmount Twin building and creating a more open corner of Viscount and Wonderland... as for pedestrian friendly, that part of Wonderland is constantly busy, the last thing we need are more crosswalks slowing traffic.
2. What other malls, other than the 'failed' Galleria, offer non-retail employment? The whole purpose of a mall is retail sales oriented. The area surrounding Westmount is all residential (with the exception of the school), there simply isn't any more land available, given their plan, to even consider residential space. Why even bother? There's so much residential area around that mall already, last thing we need is more.
3. I completely agree... but I think this 'rejuvination' is part of a plan to counteract that movement.. a lot of the building is heading south along wonderland, but with the 'success' of the KFC/Taco Bell and new Shoppers and such in that area, I believe the westmount project is trying to help bring some of that redevelopment northbound, with the new restaurants and theaters, making Westmount a "new" masonville.
4. I agree that westmount doesn't need MORE screens, I used to work at that theatre, I loved working in such a small area, the staff was small, it was great... But, that theater is now close to 13 years old (it's held up very well), and with the new technologies out there, it's starting to become more and more dated... The plan to rebuild that theater has been in the works for the last six years, it's nothing new... I'm anticipating the 11 screen "all digital" experience to really detract from Masonville... It will hopefully be a big boon to the business at Westmount, and I'm kind of glad I live right by that mall, so I can enjoy this new theater at walking distance
- Its been a long time coming, as the biggest prevention was that the city wouldn't allow new theater/entertainment in that corner of the city, because they were trying to get downtown fixed up and more attractive.. I suppose that now that goal is well within reach, the new theater project was green lit...
5. I'm not going to argue this
Quote:
Originally Posted by sparky212
Does any body have any new pics.
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I'll take some tonight when I get home of the new construction areas at Westmount..
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