Quote:
Originally Posted by yaletown_fella
I've done work in Cathedraltown and it's a pretty nice development.
It's just a shame the main street didnt take off. The main street should have been laid out more like a lifestyle center and been located closer to Major Mackenzie with a major anchor tenant like a major asian grocery store and/or Saks Off Fifth type store. This wouldve boosted traffic in the area and there wouldnt be so many empty stores.
Also, why paint window mullions a soul sucking white when a caramel or off-black wouldve looked so much better?
|
Quote:
Originally Posted by csbvan
I feel that it needs canopies over business entrances, trees and plants, a narrower main street and maybe some benches on the sidewalk. There is nothing visually interesting about the main street as it looks right now, and the scale seems off. It is desolate, but not unfixable.
|
Other than the fact that it's so hidden away (drive by on Woodbine and you'd have no clue that it exists) and the soul sucking stucco nonchitecture, I think one of the biggest problems is the width of the street. You could practically play a game of football between the buildings.
Actually I measured it on Google Maps. It's about 33 m between the building faces, which is way too far for buildings of that scale. If you're going to have a street that wide you need taller buildings to help enclose the space. The other two main streets in Markham - in Markham Village and Unionville - are about 20 m and 15 m respectively between buildings.
Both of those main streets are arterial roads (or what used to be arterial roads), which gave commercial life a chance to take root. Traditional main streets almost always developed on natural transportation routes. The problem with so many of these suburban new urbanist main streets is that they're located on roads internal to the subdivision, which hides them away from the traffic that might use the businesses. They also tend to be developed by residential developers who have no idea about the little things like sign bands, awnings, and the way that display windows interact with entrances. So they end up with this creepy, lifeless quasi-residential vibe.