Downtown Windsor – Part III

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• James, if you own three buildings, and two are occupied, and one is vacant, there is a bigger incentive for you to have the thrid one vacant for a loss and a tax write off. There are many reason why that is so wrong, but as long as you have people owning these building who don't care, things aren't going to change. The only way is to apply pressure with fines for property standards, uncleared snow, etc...

  As for gas prices, I doubt it will make any difference. As it is now we have people who drive idiotic things like Hummers and Escalades in from Lakeshore or Kingsville everyday. The elevation change during their drive is non existant over fully paved roads, yet they think these gas guzzling 4 X 4 SUV's are a nessecity. Until North American attitudes change about cars, and the required size of them, gas will have to be $2.00 or $3.00 a liter before anything changes, in the meanwhile we'll have to just listen to them bellyache about how much it cost to fill their F-150 with a tonneau cover on the back that has never had a 2 x 4 or sheet of drywall or a dresser in the bed.

• Fausto - Don't hold your breath waiting.. :)

• Andrew, I agree with you about the planters. We thought about the cladding's non permanence as it is a condition of the city allowing it to occur. The DWBIA would have to budget for maintenance or complete removal as they got damaged but realistically there will always be a lag time (I can't see more than a couple months hopefully less)

  If it gets to the proposal stage there will have to be public input and even a council session as the DWBIA does not have any unilateral say over the use of public space

  I, however will personally support pretty much any initiative that decorates our streetscape with some sort of public art. I don't have any other solution for improving the streetscape

  As far as the window coverings for vacant bldgs. There is a proposal that was before the DWBIA development committee for this exact measure but the meeting ended before it got to it. (necessary free Wireless internet details discussion went on for over an hour)

  Vacant window coverings have all been priced out and hopefully the board will support this intitative to be timed for the refacing and new signage of the DWBIA office which is also way too dated

  As far as the speculation of properties goes, that was the main reason for giving up the arena fight. To this day I firmly believe that preventing an east end arena would simply have prevented an arena anywhere in Windsor. That the City Center West property would have been doomed to remain vacant and designated arena lands forever with the 50 surrounding acres never developed. Dave Feehan, PResident of the IDA and 3 other executives from that association agreed with my assessment when presented all the information.

  Unfortunately, the result was not as I had planned nor hoped, now the City Center West lands will go undeveloped throughout the wait for the next designation.

  As for rents, people can ask $5 bucks but remember that is only an asking price. Most downtown landlords would gladly settle for common fees.

  I personally think there is something dramatically wrong when property taxes are greater than the rent. Thats a tipping point for me. As a business person, I always understood that the government becomes your silent partner through taxation. I'd never thought I'd have to accept the government as the majority partner in my operation.

• Anyone know why the city never offered the urban village lands to Ikea? If I ask any employee at the Home Depot next to Devonshire Mall what's going to be put in it's place when it moves to Walker this month, they all say Ikea. But, why is it gonna be next to Devonshire Mall? The city should offer Ikea the urban village lands for free as an incentive to get a major anchor in downtown again and more people visiting downtown. I doubt they'll be using the same building as it was so poorly built, with buckets all over the store catching the roof leaks.

• dave, easy answer is ikea wouldn't take the land for free even
  if you added a million cash to the offer

  Ikea has never and will never be interested in windsor

  I wouldn't want them with the parking they'd require
  those parking lagoons would isolate them enough to
  negate any spinoff

• true.. Ikea would require a huge parking lot and a huge store. Not fit for downtown windsor that's for sure.

• The parking could be underground, underneath the store. If Detroit streets were once bustling when the once 28 storey Hudson's Department Store was glowing in their downtown, then the same could happen here with an Ikea in our downtown. But since no one cares about setting up major anchors in downtown anymore, I guess it'll end up next to Devonshire Mall and downtown Windsor will continue to focus pandering to kiddie central.

• David - It would be great to have a national retailer of Ikea's stature choose to locate anywhere in the Windsor area, however I don't see it happening.

  They typically like to build on greefield sites in suburban locations. Manning and the 401 would be far more realisitic a location than downtown WIndsor or even the current Home Depot site. The recent Canton, MI store was the reuse of a parcel that was a K-Mart. I believe they demolished the previous K-Mart and erected the Ikea. I'm not certain the Home Depot site even with the purchase of the union gas site is sufficent for an Ikea.

  I hope you're right, as the infux of visitors to a destination store like Ikea, would be a boom to the retailers at the mall and possible reverse the trend of vacancy at the Roundhouse Centre, but I'm not very optimistic, it doesn't seem to fit the mould of the way the company operates.

• Speaking of the Roundhouse, what is happening with rooftop signage there? I always liked the turret and shed dormers. It seems now thats all getting reworked or something with huge signs. I just noticed in passing last week.

• Looks like it's getting a facelift to make it fit in better with is blander, boxier cousins at Walker & Provincial.