Downtown Windsor – Part III

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• Thanks Andrew....I kept checking the site every few minutes since I got to work, for part III. That said, how dreadfully boring, and pitiful do the streets of downtown look. Just when you think it can’t possibly get any worse, part III proves me wrong. I just love the variety you pointed out Andrew on the Shawarma shops, not across from one another, but next door to each other. How pointless is that…LOL That is a great people grabber, if you don’t like ours, go next door for the exact same thing.
  The snow covered sidewalks are another alarming issue which I guess living in Windsor, we expect, but this is downtown for goodness sakes, you would think it of all places would be cleared, OH WAIT, I guess since the city never see’s anyone down there, and half the buildings are vacant, they can save the costs of cleaning the walkways and hrrrmmm…perhaps invest it in the much needed pot hole repairs!! What a crying shame. At least there was one poor soul at that day!! The rest of the block has no life for as far as the eye can see. Oh, and why is there a rub and tug on every friggen corner, what kind of image is this sending out to all the tourists we are supposedly trying to attract, I mean with that new “ fresh fronts” approach . It’s disgusting!!, and yet another reason why city council and alike, need to heed the call for action. Shame…Shame…Shame !!

• Ross, agree 100% except for one quibble - while the city should be down there issuing tickets, it is not the city's responsibility to actually clear the sidewalks in front of the shops. The shop owners (like you, the homeowner) is responsible for that. By-law aside, it's a matter of civic pride, respect, and responsibility to one's patrons. It doesn't take long, only 10-20 minutes followed by a few minutes of tossing rock salt down if required. It takes even less time to collect garbage, pop cans, cigarette packs, wrappers, sweep up unsightly butts in front of kiddie bars, throw around some rock salt on the ice, etc. DWBIA's "clean team" could use a little support from its members in that respect. Some of the windows and surfaces in the first two blocks of shops that have been vacant for years are covered in dirt. How long would it take the owner to wash those windows and make the vacancy at least look presentable and tidy? As the state of vacant buildings deteriorate, it just makes the street look more ghetto'ish. It is possible to have a vacant building without drawing all kinds of attention to it by virtue of its lack of care and maintenance.

  If each property owner (vacant or not) did their part, downtown would at least look snappy, safer, and inviting to pedestrian traffic. Some ARE doing their part, and damn well - acknowledged - but many more are not. I know of two businesses on Tecumseh who are out shoveling the overnight snowfall between 6-7am because they are terrified of getting a ticket from the bylaw enforcement officer or, worse, a lawsuit from a slip-and-fall. Yet blocks away from city hall, many property owners leave the snow accumulate with impunity.

  This is not to say businesses failing to clear snow is unique to downtown, but given downtown's dependency on pedestrian traffic and its current sorry state (outside of bar hours), its property owners can't afford to let little easy things like this be neglected.

• Andrew, the plain streetscaping design has a rationale that was set out years ago before I joined the DWBIA.

  I don't personally agree with the rationale but I understand it. Personally I think it makes the downtown look cold

  The rational was that the streetscaping was to become a blank canvas for what was to be put on top. There was a concern that whatever "theme" or palette the city went with could possibly become dated. By keeping everything neutral, it wouldn't go out of style.

  The warmth or color etc.. would then be added by the decoration of the streetscape

  Thats why I brought the motion to expand the use of the DWBIA streetscape reserve to add streetscape decoration. Thats where the LED lights come from, thats where the flowers will soon come from. The rest is banners and wayfinding signage that will hopefully come out of the districting. Thats why the marketing campaign is important as it sets the vision for what we want downtown to become and what decorations we want to put on that streetscape

  A Downtown magazine is in th works right now that will help to explain much of this. (For the life of me, I don't understand why those explanations are not already on the DWBIA Website)

  Also, I've been pushing for consideration of an idea by the former ED Judith Veresuk to clad the planters in mosaic tile art. We could hold a competition for local artists for design and turn the ugly planters into public art. What do you think???

• Mark, the concrete grey look on everything adds to the overall drabness of the core. Not your fault - just an observation.

  Overall I like the mosaic idea on planters, but... Who maintains them? Once water gets behind and one or two falls of they will look horrible. Who's responsible for installation? Walk across the street sometime today and look at the shawarma place. I'm not sure which one it is, but one of them is clad in what looks like bathroon floor tiles. Look at the bottom near the sidewalk. There are missing tiles and it makes a bad facade job look worse.

  I'm tempted to say that it has the potential to turn out poorly and I would rather not do it. I would rather see the benches and garbage cans painted another colour.

• Whatever happened to simple tree grates? Grates are still the best option. Its too bad all that money is spent on planters which require their own maintenance and just get in the way!

• What's done is done. Concrete can be stained even after it is set by using and acid based stain - we'll be using on our Engineering Club's concrete canoe this year. As for vacant store fronts - could the DWBIA provide a cover-up for the windows, and sinage like they do at shopping malls. A shopping mall operator knows that empty stores look bad so they at least cover them in a neat and tidy way.

• James part of the problem can be seen in the second photo today. The vacant storefront had the windows covered from the inside. With no one looking after them, the covering falls and looks like junk.

  While not free, but maybe custom printed covering could be made? Feature current or historic photos of Windsor on the coverings, add the city or DWBIA logo and pass it out free of charge to the vacant storefront to cover the shops from the inside.

  However I think your temporary art gallery idea is a good one.

• Another thought; could chronically vacant property owners entertain the possibility of offering leases with a 1st month 'free' incentive to new businesses? I know it generally runs counter to standard business principles to give anything away for 'free' but in a case where you have a property that is chronically vacant and will likely remain vacant for the foreseeable future, a little incentive for a new "mouse" with typically limited startup funds to get a foothold might not be such a bad idea. If the new mouse dies after the one year lease is up, the property owner will hopefully still have 10-11 months of lease payments. Or is there something about property management that makes this sort of arrangement impractical vs getting $0 per sq. ft. year after year for an empty store?

• John, that to me would be a great idea, similar in form to what landlords offer tenants on their vacant apartments. I wonder why this hasn’t been thought of, my thought is that because these properties sit vacant for so long, the landlord refuses to loose any more income than they have to, even if it does mean a year worth of tenancy at the least. Does anyone know if these properties are leased per square foot or are they based on a flat rate similar to how apartments are priced? I think it’s a great proposition tho…I really do. I hope someone reading may just take that suggestion to heart, and perhaps initiate a new trend. For a small business owner, a month’s rent could make a huge difference when they are just setting up shop.
  I wasn’t aware that the city wasn’t responsible for maintaining the store frontages, my bad, however as you mentioned John, would it hurt the city to provide a safe walkway for it’s pedestrians in an effort to help encourage the feel of some type of care downtown. It truly to me is a matter of civic pride, no question in my mind. I also feel, since it’s not an obligation of the city to clean the walkways, the owners of the buildings should be served citations for improper care of their facilities. Impose new by laws for this. If they don’t want to contribute to keeping the core clean, but wish to belong, and operate in the core, they should have no choice but to obey, or face fines, evictions, or other disciplinary action.

• Fausto, the tree grates are not a very good idea because they actually choke the tree as teh tree grows. The tree then has to be replaced and the grate cut open. Walkerville has had this issue and are now replacing them.

  As for the stucco issue. Why does it always have to be beige or brown? How drab can it look with beige and concrete grey? Where is the vibrancy?

  The sidewalk issue is very simple. Call 311 and complain. The owners will get one verbal warning followed by subsequent tickets. I have called 311 when neighbours in my area take a long time to shovel their snow bevause we have elderly people near by who can't traverse the sidewalks due to the laziness or cheapness of the rental property owners. Which brings me to my next statement.
  The reason we see such poor shape of buildings downtown is because of absentee landlords who don't live in the area/city who really have no pride in themselves nor their properties. They exist only to make quick money and really don't care who rents the place nor do they care about the city in which their building is in. I still believe there should be some kind of regulations as to the condition a developer (read: speculator) or property owner has to keep their building.

  I like the idea of the lights and baskets and I am sure it will add a bit of much needed colour downtown.

  With all of the shawarmas in downtown the idea is simple. Cater to the bar crowd at night. Quick and easy and due to the size of the crowds it makes sense to have so many inone place. Too bad the hotdog carts were pushed out of downtown. I quite enjoyed having them around becaus it too gave a feel of vibrancy. and I doubt the impact on the restaurants was that large considering the high cost of rental properties in the area. Teh downtown hotdog restaurant couldn't make a go of it either.

  I like the idea of using art or large historic photo posters on the vacant property windows. But again the issue with the buildings is due to cheap owners. Just look at Shanfields. Cripes wit the cost of the stuff they sell you would think they would have done something with their facade...