The Official Saint John, NB Project Thread

[mark smith]

Remember pizza studio was to come to east point this spring? BS AGAIN!!

[ColSJ]

Originally Posted by mark smith

Remember pizza studio was to come to east point this spring? BS AGAIN!!

Do you have any sources to verify this? They only have 3 locations in Canada which are around Toronto so I highly doubt they’d pick Saint John over a city like Vancouver or Montreal. And.. Canada’s Best Value Inn did complete exterior renovations

[mark smith]

They are a franchise they can pop up where a buyer wants it to.

[mark smith]

Exterior finished? Really some brick work and thats it? Do you have any sources to verify this?

[michael_d40]

Originally Posted by ColSJ

Do you have any sources to verify this? They only have 3 locations in Canada which are around Toronto so I highly doubt they’d pick Saint John over a city like Vancouver or Montreal. And.. Canada’s Best Value Inn did complete exterior renovations

They are still listed on the East Point site plan.... maybe they will open later this year? Who knows.

http://marino.ca/wp-content/uploads/...on-Sheet-2.pdf

[Fischbob]

So the Draft Guide to the Central Peninsula Neighbourhood Plan has been released - more or less an executive summary of the plan. It's going to be presented to an open session of Committee of the Whole next week ahead of the release of the full Draft Plan for public comment later this month.

I've included a few key pages from the Draft Guide below:

[Franco401]

Originally Posted by Fischbob

Wow. Easily the most ambitious part of this plan, and that's saying something.

[CdnEh]

Originally Posted by mark smith

Remember all the talk about renovating canadas best value inn? Not happening renovations are on hold. Everything you hear is bs!!

Originally Posted by mark smith

Remember pizza studio was to come to east point this spring? BS AGAIN!!

You okay??????

[southieSJ]

I like that they are steering towards extending the street grid on Long Wharf, but I hope they don't make the lots only for huge apartment buildings but rather a dense mix of big and small sort of like you find on Prince William St.

It also appears that they got rid of the fishing boats and replaced them with pleasure crafts. I'd like to see the city encourage more fishers to use our slips in the harbour. Have a mix of pleasure crafts and fishing boats.

Lovely bridge as well -- like the old "Portland" bridge remade. Lots of Irish history there

[JHikka]

Originally Posted by southieSJ

It also appears that they got rid of the fishing boats and replaced them with pleasure crafts. I'd like to see the city encourage more fishers to use our slips in the harbour. Have a mix of pleasure crafts and fishing boats.

Most of the slips in the harbour are unusable for smaller craft due to the tidal current. The docks shown in the mockup for Long Wharf are not possible, AFAIK.

[southieSJ]

Originally Posted by JHikka

Most of the slips in the harbour are unusable for smaller craft due to the tidal current. The docks shown in the mockup for Long Wharf are not possible, AFAIK.

The harbour slips are just fine for small crafts. Unless they want to go up through the falls.

[JHikka]

Jeremiah's re-opened today under new management, for what it's worth.

[ColSJ]

Work on 91 King Street begins! It’s going to be so pleasing watching this uptown gem develop over the coarse of the next several months!

http://huddle.today/ground-floors-at...y-in-december/

[ColSJ]

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-br...cant-1.4669231

Looks like some drama is brewing up...
I’d normally critize the city for pushing away development but with all do respect I haven’t seen any results from these people. I know they have done some I’m not ignorant to that my point is they haven’t made any progress worth noting. Waterloo Village and the North End deserve results and they aren’t getting it...

[Taeolas]

Sounds like a typical 3 sided story; but to be honest, I'm siding a bit more with the city based on what little I've read. Feels like the Developer has gone crying to the press to drum up sympathy.

It looks like he bought a pile of properties for cheap, and doesn't have the resources needed to handle them all at once. Leaving some to rot while he works on the more profitable ones doesn't really seem fair to anyone; to the city, nor for the residences of the neighbourhoods he isn't developing.

[WharfRat]

This is interesting...

http://huddle.today/city-and-provinc...in-saint-john/

I am somewhat torn, they are talking about an uptown location which is awesome, bring jobs, property tax dollars and adding to an already great social scene in the uptown, one that would bring more people into the core after business hours...... but SJ has a higher ratio of vulnerable citizens than other cities, most of which are living close to uptown or areas easily accessible. Caution is needed IMO

[JHikka]

This subject comes up every few years and it's verbatim the same talking points over and over. We could probably go back over the years on this forum and just copy/paste posts from then with the only real difference being that Uptown is thriving now compared to then.

NIMBYs will crush any potential for a casino near Waterloo Village/South End/North End...as they probably rightly should. Putting a casino in some farflung, car-centric place changes the clientele immensely and reduces the likelihood that the vulnerable become even more vulnerable (see: Moncton). In saying this, Halifax doesn't seem to have much of an issue with their casino on the waterfront, so we'll see how this plays out. Casino NB in Moncton has been a good revenue generator for the Province and doubles as a venue for shows and concerts, so it's been a pretty successful venture on the whole.

[MonctonRad]

My preferred location for the casino in Moncton was always the downtown. Can you imagine how busy the core would be with both a casino and the events centre within a couple of blocks of one another? There would be more hotels and no doubt a few parking garages (and much less surface parking).

[kwajo]

Originally Posted by JHikka

This subject comes up every few years and it's verbatim the same talking points over and over. We could probably go back over the years on this forum and just copy/paste posts from then with the only real difference being that Uptown is thriving now compared to then.

NIMBYs will crush any potential for a casino near Waterloo Village/South End/North End...as they probably rightly should. Putting a casino in some farflung, car-centric place changes the clientele immensely and reduces the likelihood that the vulnerable become even more vulnerable (see: Moncton). In saying this, Halifax doesn't seem to have much of an issue with their casino on the waterfront, so we'll see how this plays out. Casino NB in Moncton has been a good revenue generator for the Province and doubles as a venue for shows and concerts, so it's been a pretty successful venture on the whole.

I think there is a happy medium. As a resident of the area - and someone active in the non-profit sector - in question I can sympathize with the social concerns as they are very real and not to be dismissed casually. However locating a casino in a suburban part of the city would be a terrible idea for our long-term growth, one that we would look back on decades from now the same way many judge the location of UNBSJ and the Hospital today.

[JHikka]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

My preferred location for the casino in Moncton was always the downtown. Can you imagine how busy the core would be with both a casino and the events centre within a couple of blocks of one another? There would be more hotels and no doubt a few parking garages (and much less surface parking).

I agree that Moncton's downtown would have been far improved with Casino NB locating somewhere in the core.

I need to stress these numbers again before we start getting into details regarding poverty, vulnerable persons, and other lines of thought:

22.5% of Saint John (City) residents are low income. Median total income of households is $52K (compared to $80K+ in the non-city suburbs).

19.6% of Moncton (City) residents are low income. Median total income of households is $56K (compared to $60K-$70K of Riverview/Dieppe).

14.8% of Halifax (CMA) residents are low income. Median total income of households is $69K.

Saint John has a higher rate of wealthy individuals ($100K+/year) but a higher rate of low-income individuals. It's a very have or have-not kind of city.

Likewise, SJ has a higher proportion of residents with high school or less educational achievement (43% compared to 37% for Moncton and 30% for Halifax). Nearly half of SJ's population haven't attended or completed post-secondary education facilities.

I have nothing against casinos themselves but SJ's demographics lead it to be a very precarious location for a casino, and something that everyone should be very cautious of.

[All numbers are from StatCan Focus on Geography Series 2015/2016]

Originally Posted by kwajo

I think there is a happy medium. As a resident of the area - and someone active in the non-profit sector - in question I can sympathize with the social concerns as they are very real and not to be dismissed casually. However locating a casino in a suburban part of the city would be a terrible idea for our long-term growth, one that we would look back on decades from now the same way many judge the location of UNBSJ and the Hospital today.

Absolutely, which is why this needs some tremendous thought put into it. I don't think we should be plopping down a Casino on Long Wharf tomorrow for the same reasons why I don't think we should be plopping it down on the McKay highway exit ramp for Fox Farm tomorrow, either.