So the TD Bank is on the way up.
After a lot of underground work the building rose above ground pretty quickly. Too bad it’s going to look like it does. Another pedestrian unfriendly glass wall, and another dead block in the core.
Reader Syl, sent in these photos of the site.
Syl also noticed the old Canada Gift Shop sign from next door has been removed, and was leaned up against a wall, before being carted away to the landfill. The sign looks to be from the 1960’s and is now gone for ever, one of the last of the old overhanging signs on Ouellette.
Thanks for sending along the photos Syl!
I agree Andrew, another dead block in the city. No doors to invite people on the side streets, no retail. Just another dead zone. I wish we could put all the banks on one end of the street that way downtown is more pedestrian friendly. Oh well. such is life in Windsor.
At least, it’s putting people who want to work, to work, I guess. I wonder if there will be any new TD jobs created if it’s done this year.
Another dead block, sure, but still more alive than the abandoned building that previously occupied this block, so no complaints there.
Will this building have underground parking? One thing that bothers me about a lot of the new structures being built downtown is that they almost always have underground or attached parking. That means that the people who work at that building will park there car, ride the elevator up to work, go back to their car, and go home. It almost ensures that people don’t set foot outside the building and shop downtown. In that way, it does nothing to revitalize downtown. 400 City Hall Square is a prime example of this. All the workers park underground, and most probably don’t set foot outside of the building.
Other examples of this are the casino with it’s attached parking. Patrons park, gamble, and go home. Employees don’t even park downtown, they park at a lot at Droulliard and Riverside and a shuttle brings them right to the employee entrance.
Rob – Yes. Underground parking.
David – Doubtful. Three branches are closing for this one. Wyandotte & Ouellette; University & Victoria; and the Commerical banking branch previously mentioned on here.
I just noticed they’re resting all those steel joists on top of the pedestrian walkway !! yikes! I wonder if that’s allowed?
I drove by earlier today. Those pipe trusses are now on the roof “I” beams.
Are the upper floors of the Canderal building open to the public?
I can see the 1 Bank at the Corner of University & Victoria closing, as that is a stand alone building with a property that has been wanted for a new Apartment Complex or Hotel Complex for years. The other Corner, at Wyandotte & Ouellette is kinda upsetting, as this is 1 of our City’s main intersections and it already had 1 Dead corner from the former CIBC bank and soon the TD. Someone in the City has to look at this issue and realizing that this corner needs more attention and bring something into those 2 buildings, when TD moves out.
Had the opportunity to visit Chicago last week, where I got family nearby in Indiana. It was my first opportunity to see the city since high school back in 1985. Could not believe how much the city had changed for the better. Back in 85, Chicago was your typical American big city: graffiti and trash everywhere, old and dilapidated trains and buses, no trees or flowers anywhere, hardly any people walking around. Fast forward to 2009: trees and flowers planted along major arteries, trash-free streets and sidewalks, brand-new buses and trains and lots of people everywhere. Hell, if Chicago could get its’ act together in 25 years why can’t Windsor?
^ George, Windsor is moving in that direction. Francis has looked toward Mayor Daley’s efforts to beautify his city and to follow his lead. It’s starting to happen in Windsor – the Dougall Avenue corridor is much nicer than it was 10 years ago and the downtown streetscaping is progressing. Stamped concrete is included along major arteries as well now. There are hundreds of flower baskets around downtown now too. Unfortunately with the city strike, medians and boulevards look like hell these days.
Hell, I was in Detroit last Friday and it looks like their downtown is moving light years ahead of Windsor in just a year or too and not too long ago their downtown was like Nightmare on Elm Street (wayyy behind Windsor). It’s just poor leadership, namely bad tax policies. Business people invested all that coin in the renovating the Book Cadillac because of a 15 year tax abatement. The property taxes on a million dollar plus 5000 sq ft penthouse condo in the BC is only a couple hundred bucks a month. GM is staying in the Ren Centre because Detroit Council is waving their property taxes. Detroit rewards businesses for cleaning up their downtown properties; whereas, Windsor punishes businesses in downtown with higher taxes for cleaning their places up. All that development in downtown Detroit is due to all those tax credits, abatements and lower tax policies they are offering downtowners. Downtown Windsor is dead because of uncompetitive tax policies. Even the MPAC tax assessment office announced a couple weeks ago that they are moving from downtown Windsor to Tecumseh. All Windsor has to do to fix their downtown is change their tax policies like other cities, yet they are too blind, arrogant and stupid to realize it.
Let’s raise downtown taxes to build a canal. Yeah, that’s really gonna revitalize downtown.
glad to hear that david. that placement didn’t seem like a very safe place for public to be walking under. i wonder if they could of been fined for that. if i knew all that steel was over my head i would of never walked through there.
If Windsor is moving in the same direction as Chicago, then it’s news to a lot of us. Instead of more trees and flowers along our major arteries, we see less. According to Councilor Alan Halberstadt, the city has removed most of the rose bushes from Jackson Park in a futile effort to save a few bucks. We used to be know as The City of Roses not too long ago but now we’re known as The City of Trash. What gives?
I work across the stree from this new bank building and although it will be better than what was there, it is not good enough.The last thing we need dwontown is another 3 story building.We will be stuck with that now for what, 50yrs.
What is needed downtown, among a million other things, is to have some of the streets closed.Most are a real short blocks and end up at yet another light.It’s a real bad layout down there.How much can that cost.
I have seen pictures of downtown Windsor in the early part of the century.There were fountains and other nice things to look at.It looked better then than it does now.Why not let the UofW and St Clair students have a stab at redesigning downtown?
what really confuses me is they seem to fix up every other block on ouellette but the block between wyandotte and elliot seems to get passed over they have all those big stone flower beds that the parks department always seem to overlook every spring plus the road is terrible i thought they would have kept going south to elliote street but they decided to re do pelishier street keep your murder scene neat all i ever see on that one block of ouellette is gabage dead rat carcasses and dog shit the whole block looks dirty