Rambling Man
Planning Advisory Committee Report - “Windsor is over retailed”
It’s a shame I couldn’t get out to the PAC meeting last Thursday, sounds like it would have made for an entertaining evening. Most people that read this blog would probably agree with the City’s planning department on this matter and would love to see this policy adopted officially in the Master Plan. Why should we allow development in Windsor to go unfettered?
Some thoughts on the state of our city - in no particular order:
- On Wyandotte east of Lauzon there is a brand new Shoppers Drug Mart going up complete with the requisite sea of asphalt. This will replace the existing Shoppers two blocks west in a plaza. That plaza has been home to a Shoppers or Big V for a long, long time. When they move there will be a giant hole that will go unfilled.
- The old Wal-Mart/Woolco is being transformed into several smaller, yet still large, units. No sign of future tenants. I would guess that instead of one empty retail space there will be three or four.
- On Cabana Road a brand new Armando’s Trattoria has gone up next to Armando’s Trattoria. Unhappy with the less than five year old plaza space I guess the owners felt the need to build a new place.
- The shopping/hotel development on Banwell remains an empty lot.
- Home Depot and the former Union Gas buildings - vacant.
- The Lear site will remain a scrap heap.
- Some evening take a drive out E.C. Row toward Belle River. There is a enormous place all lit up called XANADU. (It’s a gym) It is spectacular.
- Empty store fronts abound.
- Adstoll and Riverside Arenas and Edward Street Community Centre - empty.
- The Chrysler building continues to empty out - the ground floor retail space has never had a tenant.
- Is there a big box retailer not yet represented in the Lawindtecshore area?
- As economic conditions in the real world continue to erode - how much more do these outraged developers think they can build?
- If we’re lucky Windsor’s future will revolve around the U, St. Clair and our hospitals and health-care services. Market factors should drive development and investment toward areas of the city nearest to these institutions.
- Our mayor wants to bet Windsor’s future on a concrete creek, an air-cargo hub at an airport that apparently few people in the industry knew existed and a couple of properties contaminated with toxins.
Without a Master Plan that deals with the reality of Windsor and how the neighbouring communities affect our evolution we will achieve nothing. The reality is sprawl costs Windsor tax-payers money, Windsor has lost corporate and residential tax-dollar revenue this year and that is a trend that is likely to continue, our politicians and policy makers have allowed our city to be hollowed out, this region is getting poorer and losing whatever influence it may have had in Canada’s economic strategy, these things are the reality of living in Windsor. Our Planning Department needs to create policy that will direct investor dollars to areas that will benefit and yeild long-term success. This is an opportunity to point our city in a direction better suited to the new paradigm. Let’s get away from the old thinking and instead bring the retailers and services into the city and take advantage of existing infrastructure and concentrate on building communities.
Tags: big box, community building, Official Plan, planning department, sprawl
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Home Depot and the former Union Gas buildings - vacant.
Imagine Home Depot some sort of privately owned community center that had all kinds of things to do for teens so they’d stop roaming the damn mall
“The Chrysler building continues to empty out - the ground floor retail space has never had a tenant.”
Wouldn’t the main floor of the Chrysler bldg make a great CBC headquarters?
What really sucks is that the current gov’t is so antagonistic of funding the CBC. How can we get them to fund this amazing exception to the rule. The current CBC lands could then become part of the City Center West Lands allowing for a much larger footprint for our urban village (yeah, anyone remember that concept).
Think of the Win-Win-Win-Win
WIN 1. DEVELOPERS - Potential developers get a much larger footprint of land giving them far more flexibility in their proposals. The current 4-5 acre footprint is pretty limiting if you want to have commercial, education institutional, residential and cultural (think science center/aquarium/marina/ferry dock) mixed use
WIN 2. DOWNTOWN NEIGHBORHOOD Allows for a big enough development to become a game changer for all of downtown
WIN 3. TAXPAYERS see a significant white elephant off their back while city center west starts providing them more taxes
WIN 4. CBC New location plops them right down onto the foot of Ouellette and Riverside where they actually become part of the news they’re providing. Talk about embedded journalists
James,
Great article. I came to realize that retail development was on the wrong track after Devonshire Mall opened and robbed downtown of its businesses, one by one. We have to stop this hollowing out of the core.
Mark,
I like the CBC idea a lot, but what Channel 9’s stick? Where would it be moved (assuming you wanted to clear their current location completely for redevelopment). Could they logistically put a transmission tower on the top of the Canderel building and, if they could, would you want to? I think one of the towers at the WTC in New York had TV/radio towers on them, but the building was so high that you probably wouldn’t have seen them from the street. Cool idea though!
I believe not much can be built on the CBC lands because underneath is an old salt mine that is gradually caving in. There are sink holes on the lawn which is why they put up a fence.
I like the CBC idea. But since when has the city been able to lure white collar business downtown? We are losing more tenants in the core as we speak. Yet I see new buildings going up on Deziel Dr and further south of Ouellette/Dougal area. Such a shame!
I really believe the city only cares about the permits issued in whatever year they are in and damn the future.
Re-reading my post I think a key point that we can hammer away at is “Our Planning Department needs to create policy that will direct investor dollars to areas that will benefit and yeild long-term success.”
Big box, and pad site structures are built with a short life expectancy - usually 5 years to pay off and 25 year max. occupancy.
Compare this to the commercial districts that anchored the original Border Cities. Those structures are still serviceable, many nearly a century old.
We know that the big corporations have smaller versions. Take the Sobey’s mini store - Q on Dougall in South Windsor, its location is car-centric. Put the same type of store where the N&D used to be and tell me it wouldn’t be better. How about one of those type of stores on Sandwich Streeet or in Walkerville?
Make the smaller version the retail anchor in an underserviced but populated area and you could probably make a strong case for others retailers of this type to join.
I thought Sandwich has a small-format grocery store, the Westside Foodland? Rexall has an IDA in Sandwich as well.
Actuallly Vincent the IDA is expanding. They have a grocery store; a farmer’s market is rumoured to start in the spring; they have restaurants, a bike repair shop, library, and exciting development for the old jail etc. etc.
It’s not as gloom and doom in Sandwich as is being touted.
In fact, given the demographics as outlined in the CIP, Sandwich is doing much better than other commercial districts in town by some.
It’s fine to say “put this here and put that there”, but at the end of the day all the property holders have to be brought together and shown how they can benefit by participating in whatever plan is put forward.
The business model for Sobey’s at Q didn’t work out and they’ve moved out of there a long while ago. As with any plan, it has to be viable for the property owners who are probably more concerned with profit rather than what is the “larger good” for any specific area.
The CBC move MIGHT look good on paper, but part of the plan falls apart when the salt mine hiccup is disclosed, and also because CBC just underwent numerous layoffs because the station is not generating a revenue stream. Back to that profit thing.
Ideas need to be sold to the stakeholders. Unfortunately, or not, there’s got to be more in it for them than just an altruistic pay off.
James, you might be interested in this article below;
http://www.newurbannews.com/urbansupermarkets.html
Urban grocers proliferate
Demographic and market conditions are causing supermarkets in the District of Columbia region and elsewhere to modify their designs and fit walkable neighborhoods.
A trend towards urban supermarkets is evident even in this economic downturn. In the Washington, DC, area, at least 10 grocery stores with pedestrian-friendly design have been built or are moving toward construction.
Urban-format grocery stores are built mostly in transit-served, walkable neighborhoods — often where new urban development is taking place, says Brian O’Looney of Torti Gallas and Partners in Silver Spring, Maryland. The firm is working on a Whole Foods Market in North Bethesda, Maryland, with MV+A Architects, and on Safeways in Washington’s Georgetown and Tenleytown sections. All are urban-format stores; the first two are expected to open in 2010. The Tenleytown store is scheduled to start construction next year.
Great examples Vincent!
LOS, you are right but the property owners need to understand that having a vacant buliding and/or lot doesn’t do them any good either.
We have mainly two types of property owners in our core areas. Those who keep vacant lots and vacant buildings as to not have competition with their other businesses in the area (Hmmm….Katzmann, Horowitz, guy who demolished Seagraves building just to name a few); And those who live outside the city (London and Toronto as there are many land owners wholive there who own property here) and just don’t care as long as they can get something/anything. These people also bide their time waiting for everyone else to refurbish the area so they can cash in with little money exposed.
It really pisses me off either way.
This reminds me of one of my favoriate books. Wind, Sand and Star. By Antoine De Saint Exeupery.
“I sat down face to face with one couple. Between the man and the woman a child had hollowed himself out a place and fallen asleep. He turned in his slumber, and in the dim lamplight I saw his face. What an adorable face! A golden fruit had been born of these two peassants. Forth from this sluggish scum had sprung this miracle of delight and grace.
I bent over the smooth brow, over those mildly pouting lips, and I said to myself: This is a musician’s face. This is the child Mozart. This a life full of beatiful promise. Little princes in legends are not different from this. Protected, sheltered, cultivated, what could not this child become? …
Only the Spirit, if it breathe upon the clay, can create Man.”
http://the-lundgaards.com/?cat=38
Opps, the title is: “Wind, Sand and Stars.” French title: “Terre des hommes.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind,_Sand_and_Stars
O.K. Finally a chance to get back to this conversation…
LOS - I wasn’t aware the Q store died. I was only by there once, to visit the Alstate office in the plaza there. I’m not surprised it didn’t work there - it wasn’t very convenient tucked in the corner there, across the entrance to a highway from nearby houses.
Vincent - Sandwich and Walkerville along with all the other established BIA’s, not just “Downtown” would benefit by steering investment and new development to revitalize their main streets.
LOS - Stakeholders need to recognize that there is no going back to how deals were done and money made just a short time ago. Investors will have to go long to realize decent returns. No one wants to risk money. Altruism and citizenship are pillars to build on, don’t discount them.
Dave - sorry Dude, it’s going to get worse. We are a long way from any kind of renewal anywhere in this city. People are scared, don’t want the city to spend any money, don’t have money to put into their homes or rental properties, businesses hanging on by their fingernails - gloomy but we have not reached bottom yet.
James - Sorry, but your argument about people not having money to put into their homes couldn’t be any more wrong. Just in my neighbourhood, I’ve seen three homes that were bought this fall and totally renovated. New windows, flooring, siding, even new roofs. Many people are taking advantage of the renovation tax.