Future Parking Lots…

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• why doesn't city council just pass a motion to level anything pre-1960? wouldn't that be easier? besides, who needs those apartments above gio's? ahhhhh....when i look to the far right in the last picture i see why the space is needed. sandra poo-poo-tello must need the space for her exceedingly large head. and i certainly see no potential for apartments at the KofC. i mean look at the thing, it's not suitable for human occupancy in any way, all decreped and falling apart like it is and all that. betcha that sign out front stays though.
  i sure hope my letter to the editor went thru lol
  thanks andrew!

• I see a great irony in this rush to create additional parking spaces in a year when almost everybody is complaining about sky-high gas prices they didn't see coming and ruing the day they made the decision to purchase their gas-guzzling white elephants.

  2008 definitely is a weird year to be creating parking space in a city that already has ample parking opportunities.

  If buildings were being leveled to create parks or urban gardens I might think differently about the matter.

• I saw Giovanni's demise coming a mile away. The city messed up by letting that area get overdeveloped wthout restrictions for parking. Several older apartment buildings in the area without parking doesn't help the matter. Then, there's the highrise apartment buildings that don't have at least as many parking spots as apartments. The office building next door won't get rented without parking. The Giovanni building listing for peanuts, less than $200K didn't help the matter. I bet those nice red brick houses next to the Medical Arts building will be on demolition list soon as the Medical Arts Centre can't be rented without parking. How could the city allow that junky office building next to the glorious Medical Arts building be built without considering the impact of a parkingless Medical Arts building. What a mess the city made.

• I posted this great piece from our friends at http://www.detroityes.com at http://www.scaledown.ca so I thought it especially appropriate for tis segment of the Photo Du Jour.

  http://americancity.org/magazine/article/everything-is-going-to-be-alright-demolition-and-adaptive-reuse-in-detroit/

  The city talks about density and creating areas for more people to live but yet they do the exact opposite. Don't they realize that energy prices are not stopping anytime soon? I just heard on the radio today that our natural gas prices are going up 45%! Add that to the high price of gasoline and what are people going to do? They are going to want to live as close to work as possible.

  The city should be looking to get business back downtown so that people will follow suit. But then again they will just talk and nothing will get done. Same Windsor mentality of 1969 is the same Windsor mentality of today.

• I think but am not certain that there is a by-law in Windsor called the twenty steps by-law, that no driver in Windsor must be or can be, more than twenty walking, waddleling steps away from their vehicle to reach a business or government office and or their residence and that destination must be visiable in a direct line of sight from each parking space so that the driver does not get confused or lost, malls not included because they want you to drive for hours looking for thee closest spot, makes them look busy.

• Somebody ought to give Prince Eddie and the gang down at City Hall copies of James Howard Kunstler's "The Long Emergency" followed by a pop quiz on Peak Oil, Global Warming, and Sustainable Development. If anybody fails the quiz we put them in a makeshift jail in front of City Hall and invite people to throw rotten tomatoes at them. Does it sound like a plan?

• Hell, forget a makeshift jail. Just do what the pilgrims used to do and put them in one of those wooden arm and neck shackles in front of city hall for a week on and throw rotten tomatoes at them. Hahaha.

• I've got a stupid question......

  What do all these properties have in question? They're either not occupied or have limited occupancy. I noticed that the Bank Of Montreal building had a For Lease sign in the window. Anyone know how long it was empty?

  So what do you do with a unoccupied building? Dump money into it and pay taxes on it just to keep preservationists happy? Maybe spend a ton on money on remodeling the interior that you know is lost because you'll never recapture it at prevailing rental rates?

  I'm all for adaptive reuse, but somewhere along the line private property rites have to be considered too......

• Agreed Doug, but parking lots to me aren't the best use of the land.

  The bank of Montreal closed I think two years ago when they moved to a new location about 1 mile south. The bank put it for sale and it was purchased by the owner of the stripmall.

  A half hearted attempt was made to lease it, and then down it came...

• I actually played a gig in this knights of columbus hall years ago i believe. We booked the space (pretty cheap) to have 3-4 bands play an all ages show, since there were no places to hold local shows.

  But who want to actually go out of the house and actually DOING things anyways?

  Mike