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  #501  
Old Posted Aug 31, 2014, 10:05 PM
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^ The old symphony buildings' new store is set to open next week, it's called Pushers, they were on Maiden Lane before buying this building.

I'm curious about what's going on in the old Lazarre's Furs building, a sign says an exciting announcement is coming soon, but there's still a for rent sign that was just put up in the window!?!?

Can't wait for the new bakery to open! It's only two blocks from my condo!
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  #502  
Old Posted Sep 2, 2014, 4:05 AM
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If this was true, then Toronto should only have two lane country roads and nothing larger! I agree to an extent that you can't keep widening roads forever, but you do need your major arterial roads to be sufficiently large enough to keep traffic flowing. I'm all for alternative modes of transportation, but you also need modern roads as well. Plus, Cabana is not an extremely suburban road, although it looks like one, it's the only major east-west artery across the entire southern part of the city, where most of the growth will continue to be.
So we should abandon the city centre and continue to subsidize the sprawling mess that is South Windsor and Lasalle?
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  #503  
Old Posted Sep 2, 2014, 12:04 PM
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So we should abandon the city centre and continue to subsidize the sprawling mess that is South Windsor and Lasalle?
Infrastructure must be updated throughout the whole city, not just one part. I live downtown and walk to work every day, so don't lecture me about subsidizing sprawl. South Windsor is a very important part of the city and has needed these road upgrades for decades!
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  #504  
Old Posted Sep 2, 2014, 3:59 PM
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City planners hatching strategies to attract residents downtown

A recent article from the Windsor Star talking about how the city might finally get serious about a residential recruitment plan for the downtown core.

source:http://blogs.windsorstar.com/news/ci...dents-downtown

Quote:
The ideas are still in their conceptual stages, but city planners are devising strategies to entice people to live in Windsor’s downtown core as a way to increase commercial investment.

Recognizing that foot traffic in the city centre is the only way to bring in new businesses, city staff want to see more affordable apartments that will diversify the downtown demographic, said Thom Hunt, head of city planning.

Some of the preliminary ideas include possibly reducing development cost charges, reducing building permit fees or possibly even offering grants for converting old office space into apartments.

“We’re looking at making a community improvement plan, which is a tool to provide incentives in targeted ways,” Hunt said. “Without those incentives, the cost to renovate older spaces is greater than the market will afford.”a

The downtown currently lacks the critical mass of residents to entice new businesses, say commercial real estate experts who have studied the market feasibility of the area.

The 5,045 households within a 10-minute walk of the downtown core have an average household income of about $38,000, which doesn’t account for a lot of disposable income, according to a results from the market analysis conducted by Jim Williams, president of ReMax Capital Inc.

Specializing in leasing and selling industrial, commercial and investment real estate, Williams said his study shows a need for residential growth in the downtown before larger businesses invest.

“I don’t want to discourage anyone, there are good things happening but we’re not going to see a large influx of large retail stores in downtown Windsor any time soon,” he said. “The only way to get growth other than fast food restaurants, is to get more people living and working in the downtown. In order to do that, the city has to get real developer-friendly.”

Some property owners in the downtown testify to the current challenges. One landlord with an expansive portfolio of properties said he regularly makes concessions to bring in quality tenants.

Italo Ferrari owns a host of buildings on Ouellette Avenue and Wyandotte Street. Combined, his floor space totals a sweeping 500,000 square feet and he boasts an occupancy rate of about 90 per cent.

“You have to make deals, you have to accommodate the clients,” he said.

One of the biggest boons for the area was the University of Windsor’s expansion onto the Tunnel Bar-B-Q land, the neighbouring Armouries and the old Windsor Star building. Bringing students and school faculty into the downtown has already sparked attention from outside investors, Hunt said.

“I would say the downtown has hit a tipping point, meaning it’s going in a different direction than it was going,” he said. “You don’t see it yet because we don’t have the people down here that we’ll have in a year or so.”

Even factoring in students won’t be enough of an economic boost, though, Williams said, underscoring the need for new residents living in the area.

“Students are going to help, but when you look at disposable income and how much they spend, they don’t have a lot,” he said.

City planners are also talking about improving transportation. Hunt said there’s also an idea floating around to create a shorter transit circuit running in the downtown, possibly connecting to the university and other outlying urban neighbourhoods.
An aggressive residential recruitment program is what I think Windsor should have really focused on years ago. Give developers good reason to want to build there and/or people reasons to live in the city core. Strengthen the core neighbourhood by offering incentives for people to move there and incentives to staple businesses that help make a walkable neighbourhood.

A good case in point is the bakery coming to downtown. A staple business will finally be operating in the downtown core again. Now imagine if we had a butcher, hardware store or a grocery store? How about even an office supply store, stuff like that that seems to be missing from our little downtown.

I also notice in the article they mention discussing some future transit options which I also think will be good for growth in the city core once you can get new residents in.
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  #505  
Old Posted Sep 3, 2014, 1:04 AM
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^ For a grocery store, isn't there a Food Basics on Goyeau Street? I know it's not the best but not even downtown London has a decent grocery store. They seem to avoid the central cores.

I'm all for widening Cabana Rd as it's long overdue. The city has to keep growing whether it's the outskirts or the core. South Windsor / LaSalle isn't exactly a "sprawling mess" (not nearly as bad as you see in say Kitchener or Brampton for example).
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  #506  
Old Posted Sep 3, 2014, 2:27 AM
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The Food Basics on Goyeau is a bit sketchy. I did most of my shopping at the Superstore on Howard when I lived downtown. (Well, near downtown; Victoria and Erie.)
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  #507  
Old Posted Sep 3, 2014, 12:39 PM
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It takes me 4 minutes to walk to food basics from Ouellette Ave. and wyandotte St. I don't know why people keep saying there's no grocery store in the core, it's only one block off ouellette behind the main Library. It may not be in the absolute centre of DT, but it's easily accessible for most.
I would love to see a small boutique style grocer in the core though as well, something like a mini Remark Farms or the like.
I also can't wait for the new bakery to open on University DT!
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  #508  
Old Posted Sep 5, 2014, 1:51 AM
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^ For a grocery store, isn't there a Food Basics on Goyeau Street? I know it's not the best but not even downtown London has a decent grocery store. They seem to avoid the central cores.

I'm all for widening Cabana Rd as it's long overdue. The city has to keep growing whether it's the outskirts or the core. South Windsor / LaSalle isn't exactly a "sprawling mess" (not nearly as bad as you see in say Kitchener or Brampton for example).
You must consider: if you expand the roads in South Windsor, more people will want to live there, which will cause more people to leave the downtown for the suburbs, causing the downtown to be empty and the congestion in the south side comes back.
If anything i think it should only have a centre turn lane as the majority of backups are caused by turning vehicles (or at least they were when i lived there).

As far as grocery stores avoiding the city centres: there are many factors behind this. Some obvious ones are:
(A) they will go to where they can reach the most people (you won't find a grocery store in the financial district, as it empties out after 5, which is when people shop for groceries) And they must consider how most customers will get to the store (city centres don't have a lot of space for parking, but if most customers walk there, this isn't an issue.) Also, many people will drive quite a distance to get to their favourite grocer, but taking groceries on public transit, especially infrequent transit is difficult.
(B) they need a large space (many people want to shop at stores with better selection)
(C) the large space they require isn't cheap, and they will balance accessibility with price (it's more expensive downtown, but at the same time, they want to be in or close to the population to attract customers)

As far as Windsor's downtown, the Food Basics is in a large building with lots of parking, making it accessible by the broader neighbourhood, and is within walking distance of most downtown residents. Yes, it is a bit south, but there just isn't the building footprint or the population density further north.
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  #509  
Old Posted Sep 5, 2014, 12:06 PM
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South Windsor is not a suburb, it's just south of the DT and has been popular since the 1950s. It is a major windsor neighbourhood and is one of the highest growth areas of the city. I agree more needs to be done to increase interest by developers in the inner city, but the rest of the city's neighbourhoods need to be looked after as well!
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  #510  
Old Posted Sep 8, 2014, 2:00 AM
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Widening Cabana Road won't result in much population change in South Windsor since there's hardly anywhere left to build along that road. Most of those neighbourhoods date back to the '60s and the road is embarrassing - it looks more like a country road. I'm all for preventing urban sprawl but Windsor has little true sprawl considering the size of the metro area (mainly because the population has been stagnant for so long). If anything we need to find ways to grow both the core and the outer 'hoods.
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  #511  
Old Posted Sep 8, 2014, 7:09 PM
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Have any of you tried crossing Dougall on the long stretch between Cabana and the shopping centres? I have, and its very dangerous, never mind difficult. If Cabana is widened, that issue will be duplicated on Cabana.

What South Windsor needs, before widening the road is warrented is a usable transit system. The bus that travels that road i believe stops at 7pm, hardly an alternative to driving.
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  #512  
Old Posted Sep 10, 2014, 4:39 PM
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So the CBC has sold off their building along Riverside Drive for something like $1.4 million. They will continue to be located at the same address but will only be leasing out about 1/3 of the available space in the building, about 10,000 sq ft.

Somehow that CBC building is on the city's heritage registry.. 8|
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  #513  
Old Posted Sep 19, 2014, 5:13 PM
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So, anyone want to talk about the run for the mayor's seat? There looks to be 3 main contenders Drew Dilkens, John Milson, and Larry Horwitz.

So far Larry Horwitz has ran the most aggressive campaign, getting his billboards and lawn signs out first. As well he did an 80 businesses in 80 days tour where he got out and talked to local businesses big and small to get feedback from them.

Drew Dilkens we knew would run but he's been a bit late to get some of his material out to the public regarding his campaign. Also John Milson is just rolling out information to the public today, but he did join the race late.

Interesting times in Windsor these days. Who are windsorites going to pick after having Eddie Francis for the last 12 years?
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  #514  
Old Posted Sep 30, 2014, 12:09 AM
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So Windsorites have chosen a preferred design for the new city hall of the two designs offered as a choice.

source: http://windsorite.ca/2014/09/windsor...y-hall-design/

Quote:
The results are in for which design Windsorites prefer for a new City Hall, and the winner is the Campus Concept.

Voting took place both on the City’s website as well as at a public open house.

A total of 1114 people voted online with 783 votes for the Campus Concept and 331 for the Gateway Concept. At the open house, 54 voted for the Campus, while 28 voted for the Gateway.

City council will make the final decision at their meeting on October 6th. The tender is expected to be awarded next October with Construction starting in November 2015 and occupancy expected in April 2018.
The chosen design, The Campus Concept

Photos source:http://www.citywindsor.ca/cityhall/C...s-Concept.aspx











And here are 2 pictures of the less flattering angles, the first as you approach from Windsor Ave.



From Park Ave.

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  #515  
Old Posted Dec 28, 2014, 6:02 AM
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Hi there, Windsorites. I may have an opportunity to move to your city in mid-2015, and so far I quite like what I've seen of Windsor and the surrounding area. However I do have one major concern, and that is air quality - I know Windsor's air is among the worst in the country and I'm wondering just how bad it really is. Is it really that much worse than Toronto and Montreal (or other big cities like LA and New York)?

From the bit of research I've done, I'm under the impression that it seems to have spikes of particularly bad air at times (mostly in the summer) rather than being consistently bad year round on a day-to-day basis. Would that be an accurate assesment of the situation or am I wrong here?

And have you or others you know suffered negative health effects due to the air quality, and overall would you say Windsor's reputation for that is warranted? Thanks for any feedback on the issue. I'm a fairly health conscious person and having lived most of my life in Saskatoon and Vancouver I haven't had to think about air quality that much so this is a bit new to me.
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  #516  
Old Posted Dec 28, 2014, 11:02 AM
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We have about as many smog advisory days as Toronto, possibly a bit more because of a little extra added heat & humidity. I think most of the time it's because of those two reasons.

Basically when the heat & humidity climb, don't go out jogging or anything like that, and if you're a senior don't go doing things like mowing the lawn, or jogging and shit like that because it's hot and humid.

The weather has been getting weirder here in the last few years.
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  #517  
Old Posted Dec 28, 2014, 6:13 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Morningrise View Post
Hi there, Windsorites. I may have an opportunity to move to your city in mid-2015, and so far I quite like what I've seen of Windsor and the surrounding area. However I do have one major concern, and that is air quality - I know Windsor's air is among the worst in the country and I'm wondering just how bad it really is. Is it really that much worse than Toronto and Montreal (or other big cities like LA and New York)?

From the bit of research I've done, I'm under the impression that it seems to have spikes of particularly bad air at times (mostly in the summer) rather than being consistently bad year round on a day-to-day basis. Would that be an accurate assesment of the situation or am I wrong here?

And have you or others you know suffered negative health effects due to the air quality, and overall would you say Windsor's reputation for that is warranted? Thanks for any feedback on the issue. I'm a fairly health conscious person and having lived most of my life in Saskatoon and Vancouver I haven't had to think about air quality that much so this is a bit new to me.
I hope you enjoy the region if you choose to move here, it's a very underrated place in Canada. The air pollution that can sometimes build up in the summer can be bad on certain hot, muggy days, but for the most part, it's not really an issue. some people with pre existing health problems may be affected by spikes in particulate, but basically, if you're healthy, you shouldn't notice a problem. I have lived here for almost 50 years, and have never had a problem from air pollution.
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  #518  
Old Posted Dec 29, 2014, 7:56 AM
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Thanks for the feedback. I'm a young, healthy guy and avoid strenuous activities during intense heat so I don't think that will be a problem for me. I'm more concerned about long term health effects but it sounds like it's probably not much worse than living in an average big city?
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  #519  
Old Posted Dec 29, 2014, 1:50 PM
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Pretty much!
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  #520  
Old Posted Dec 29, 2014, 9:08 PM
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Good to know! I look forward to (hopefully) getting personally acquainted with the area this coming year
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