[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Echoes

Downtown Saskatoon has neatly defined boundaries, being 25th Street to the north, Idylwyld Drive to the west, and the South Saskatchewan River to the east and south. Geographically, it's a massive area for the downtown of a city of Saskatoon's size. You'll find that on the fringes of this zone there are large areas that don't feel or function like a downtown - a mostly single-use high density residential area in the northeast, the Warehouse District to the northwest, River Landing on the south, and a lot of vacant property/surface parking thrown in the mix. The office/retail/entertainment core is centered on 21st Street (Midtown Plaza - Bessborough Hotel) and 2nd and 3rd Avenues, and then a further block or two in each direction.

For planning and public realm investment purposes, the City defines a larger City Centre area, which combines Downtown with adjoining corridors of 20th Street (Riversdale) to the west, Broadway Avenue (Nutana) to the south and College Drive (U of S) to the east across the river, and the high density portion of City Park to the north.

There is often a strategy to these odd definitions of downtown. In my city (Gatineau) downtown is traditionally the Vieux-Hull district which is right across from downtown Ottawa. Where the infamous bar strip was and federal office buildings are clustered. But it also officially includes the commercial strip of Boulevard St-Joseph some distance away and is not really that connected to the old core. I think it's something the BIA on St-Joseph lobbied to get in order to be considered as part of "downtown". What advantages there are with this I am not sure, but it is what it is.