Will Downtown Windsor Survive

I wrote a BLOG about the downtown a long time ago but never posted it. Circumstances were such that I had other matters to write about and I just kept putting it off. After reading Gord Henderson's column today and the remarks of Windsor businessman Larry Horwitz, it seemed appropriate to post it now.

What Larry has not realized (but what Henderson knows I am sure) is that all of what Larry is complaining about is deliberate but unspoken. It is to move the downtown eastward to our new downtown--the area around the Casino. Let Ouellette be stuck with kiddy bars and holes in the ground as the new Tunnel Plaza pushes tourists eastward and directs people to the new Windsor downtown.

Just wait until the announcement is made after the election about the building of Windsor's new signature City Hall to be built in the Casino neighbourhood. That will signal the official death of the existing downtown. After all, we spent $15,000 on an audit of the Income and Security Building telling us how to run big projects. And Councillor Valentinis told us at Council what a mess the existing City Hall is from an energy management perspective. PLUS all of that money coming in due to Eddie's financial genius year after year after year....

For those who missed it, here is the laundry list of what Horowitz says is wrong. I am sure the pattern should now be obvious:

1. taxes and draconian parking and smoking enforcement strangle small business and where initiatives drown in endless study.
2. Windsor is, in many ways, the architect of its own misfortune, and thinks it could do far more to attract the hundreds of thousands of Canadians in its southwestern Ontario backyard
3. given the foot-dragging over his proposal to block off tiny Maiden Lane in summer for a chess park, just how long it would take to get Windsor's main drag closed
4. Pelissier Street parking garage. A blight, with windows boarded up since early spring despite repeated pleas from merchants to fix them, it sucks life out of the street while city hall dithers over its future.
5. the surveillance cameras council approved last December and which some hoped could be in operation for the Super Bowl? Still working their way through the system.
6. Windsor destroyed two urban villages --the Norwich Block and the Western Super Anchor site -- and now it's offering developers incentives for a new urban village.
7. a costly riverfront festival plaza but located it so far from the core that it draws people away from downtown instead of pulling them in. Same with Charles Clark Square
8. the Ouellette Avenue streetscaping is more than two years behind schedule and counting.
9. government services building was a monumental ego trip, erected in a city which already had a glut of cheap office space and diverted government employees and clients away from Ouellette.

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Is the downtown dead or can it be brought back to life? Is Ouellette Avenue still the centre of downtown or has it already moved eastward but we have not recognized it? As I have said before, in my view, facetiously, Mark Boscariol's restaurants are now our Western Super Anchor.

DWBIA will hate me but I rarely patronize the downtown shops or restaurants. As you will readily see, I have not even attended any of the events in the downtown at the Festival Plaza. In fact, I did not even know that site existed until a few days ago.

It was not always like this. When I first came to Windsor about 20 years ago, the downtown was very vibrant and exciting with lots of interesting shops, including fur stores on every corner it seemed. I really was quite pleasantly surprised.

Then the auto industry had a massive downturn, offices relocated away from the central core, the Casino did not bring the business that many owners thought it would and the downtown suffered. We have a central core where prime office space at Canderel is virtually given away and the office vacancy rate is around 30-50% depending on how you do the calculation. It is so bad that two major parking garages are in receivership and many spots are for rent.

I came downtown with my wife on Boxing Day last year to take advantage of the sales. We did not last very long. We were about the only ones on the street as well it seemed.

I finally understood why the crowds on Fireworks night seemed so small to me. When I first came here, the area where I watched the fireworks, around the Hilton, was jam packed with people. I don't like crowds all that much so started to watch it on TV for many years. About 3 or 4 years ago, I was invited to a party on the river and so came back. What surprised me for several years was the size of the crowds around the Hilton, certainly not what I remembered.

This year I found out why! I was early for the party and so wanted to take a look at the Midway to pass the time. It wasn't where I thought it was, but much further east, nearer to the Casino. Not close to the existing downtown as far as I was concerned. I did not understand it at all until I did some research into Festival Plaza.

I tell you all of this because I saw a full-page ad in the Star last Saturday that the DWBIA ran. It's the second time they have run the ad too. I hope at least DWBIA got a big discount on it. Appropriately, it was part of Section D of the Star ie the births and deaths section. I thought that was a fitting location for Windsor's downtown. It was wrapped around the obituary section of the paper if you are pessimistic about the downtown or the celebration section if you are optimistic.

For myself, I looked at the ad as a "political" piece; I thought that the E-machine wrote it! My first thought was that this was Eddie Francis calling in an IOU for bringing St. Clair downtown. That was supposed to be what the DWBIA said it needed and received so pay up.

I know that DWBIA has to bring people back downtown, people like me who have deserted it. I know that DWBIA has to make downtown exciting since Americans are staying away in droves because of the higher dollar and fears of traffic backups. But really...giving people false expectations won't accomplish what DWBIA is trying to do.

I am not trying to be critical, honest. We need an excting downtown here if we are to survive. And no one is trying harder and taking more imaginative action than DWBIA. I know that DWBIA has to take a positive spin but this ad made me gag!

I must admit that I was shocked that the Keg did not get a bigger spotlight in the ad since that seemed to be the beacon that is going to attract the investors that are going to re-vitalize the downtown. I guess that pitch has been overplayed (never mind that we still do not know the details of the parking deal in the underground garage!)

So here is what is helping the downtown's rebirth according to the ad:

1. 16 new businesses opened, but how many closed?
2. Downtown Farmers' market. There were 7 vendors the first weekend with spots available for up to 22. Crowds totalled over 6,000 for all of June. However, about 2300 of them came the first weekend. How many really came in the hope of seeing Councillor Zuk do her dance?
3. Streetscaping on Ouellette amd cosmetic enhancements but ask the DWBIA how long it will take the City to complete the job!
4. The Bus depot..you mean the one that is a fraction of the size it first was supposed to be? You mean the one that was supposed to be built for Super Bowl in Detroit? Oh you mean the funky one
5. St. Clair relocation of an "estimated 1,000 people." I truly hope that whoever is doing the number crunching is not the one who did the Super Bowl figures for the Mayor, you know the $100 million that turned into a small fraction of that. Now they are not coming until September, 2007, a year from now, since it will take several months for the lawyers to do the contract work. Read the comment on my BLOG June 16, 2006 "The Marketing Of The Cleary Deal" for an interesting perspective.
6. Urban village. That was Bill Marra's idea when he was on Council. He chaired that committee. How many years have we been talking about it and we have not even sent out the RFPs yet
7. The $400 million Casino complex... the old one sure revitalized the downtown didn't it! I thought that Casino doors only allow people to enter, not to exit! Anyway, with the retail shops moving to the Casino area, who needs to go to the kiddie bar area.
8. No smoking...sure businesses embraced it, what choice did they have? It will be interesting what happens in 6 months. How much has the City been able to get so far from the Province to help out our businesses? We can use Slush Fund money for unexpected pandemic plans but there is no money for our downtown businesses who are facing disasters.

If I were a business person downtown, I would have been screaming bloody murder about the midway moving away and festivals taking place in front of the Casino as part of a shift. I'd be screaming that we have lost thousands of jobs and have people moving out of town for new ones and our Economic Development Commission has not even appointed a new CEO yet (according to Ken Lewenza on Face-to-Face the other day). I'd be screaming about City Hall undercutting the commercial real estate market with its Canderel deal and competing as a landlord. I'd be screaming that without jobs and people no one will ever live in an urban village. I'd be screaming that we are cozying up too much to the Mayor and Council and not demanding more and in a timely fashion.

You know, I'd just be screaming until real action was taken! Perhaps nothing will happen until we have a Mayor and Council that really believe in our downtown