This columnist was a member of the task force formed to help improve downtown Kitchener. There were many worthwhile suggestions presented along with innovative blueprints.
A rejuvenated downtown core once again can be a place that attracts residents and shops to cater to them. If proper remedies are applied, a dingy backwater can emerge into a planned urban environment that cities from the Maritimes to the west coast should try to emulate.
Urban planners must accept the fact that once major retailers leave and relocate to regional shopping malls or to those big-box huge centres, they never will return to downtown cores.
One of the first steps is to control the omni-present automobile. That means there should be a successful, mass transit system that operates from outlying areas to the downtown core of a city. Then, people can leave their cars at a designated parking area and not worry about parking. That plus development financing can knit separate districts together – rather than condemning blighted districts to remain in limbo. Banks must be urged to cooperate to finance projects.
Downtown areas should work on restoring vibrancy to cores with a completely different retail product – cafes, some outdoors, restaurants, specialty shops and entertainment programs. The old-fashioned department store will be a distant memory in downtown cores.
In Kitchener the task force was told there should be renewed residential and office structures replacing the closed factory buildings that dot the landscape. Builders complain that development charges and parking regulations are hurdles that should be reduced or eliminated completely if possible.
In a way, mimicking what happens in downtown Toronto, regular outdoor concerts and festivals should be part of physical revitalization that can be undertaken in most urban areas, and bring life to downtown cores. Even now Kitchener has street closings for outdoor festivals.
Revitalizing a downtown neighbourhood requires infrastructure investments.
In Kitchener, for example, poor street lighting scared residents and encouraged criminal activity. Public bench upgrades and road improvements to slow traffic and improve facilities for pedestrians would be helpful. Then, too, a convention centre, auditorium or an expanded area around city hall can make a major contribution to a core’s success.
Those steps will encourage crowds to return to downtown venues.
A new chapter will open, making way for more economic activity.