Originally Posted by Jamaican-Phoenix
The "questionnaire" is a joke. 250 characters for what should be a national landmark and attraction? Ha! That just shows me the City of Ottawa is not serious in the least.
You want to fix Sparks Street? It's going to take dedication, planning, and a fair bit of money.
Bank street and Elgin are north/south roads that are the definition of mixed use. Along these streets, you can find shopping, residential, business, entertainment, and restaurants and cafes. Downtown is partially dead because there's no connection between these two; a connection that can easily be found in Sparks Street as it connects both streets and will be a stone's throw from the future downtown rail tunnel and related stops.
The greatest challenge to Sparks street's success is the sheer mass of bureaucracy it takes to get anything done. The NCC, Public Works, the city, the BIA and the Sparks Street Mall Authority all have a say in how the shopping district is run. An agreement would need to be reached between all parties that the entire street should be rezoned as medium-rise mixed-use development. That's your starting point.
Another challenge Sparks street faces is that it can no longer be the premier luxury shopping street, especially in the wake of Holt Renfrew's closing. Companies like Nordstrom and Tiffany's have relocated to enclosed malls like Rideau Centre and Bayshore. This precludes the traditional shopping street setup of many European cities as ever having a chance on success on this street.
Either through expropriation or new development opportunities east of Bank street, a mix of condos and affordable rental units need to be built in order to acquire a local population base. What do people do in their neighbourhoods - or rather, need to do? They want to go to cafes and restaurants (not exactly a problem on this street, so good). They need to buy groceries. They want to attend events, be they at art galleries, theatres, community centres, or live music venues. They want to browse and shop (not great here, but that's not exactly an impossible situation to solve).
Having festivals like Ribfest, Poutinefest, and Buskerfest, etc. are all well and good, and should continue and be encouraged. But hey, you know what Sparks street and the area is lacking that the Byward Market and other neighbourhoods aren't? A Farmer's market. Between the condos on Bank and future condos on Sparks street, that should be enough of a catchment for a modest market.
Another problem with Sparks street is the wind tunnel effect. It gets quite windy there, so the winds would need to be broken up by something. I would suggest trees, but Sparks is kind of like a canyon at the moment so they may not thrive in such a place.
Stop-gap measures like a casino or zipline won't fix Sparks. Sparks needs to be a year-round destination, which means it needs local citizens (condos and apartments) and things neighbourhoods need to keep people there. You need shops, restaurants, cafes, bars, music venues, community centres, markets, theatres, etc.
And though it may not be environmentally friendly, you could encourage people to come to Sparks street if it was artificially heated with street lanterns. Who would want to walk down Queen, Albert, Slater, etc. when there was a heated street just a few blocks away? That's a detour most of us would only be too happy to take in the dead of winter.
With the absence of a movie theatre in the Rideau Centre and now World Exchange, there is no home for cinema in the downtown core when there used to be at least two. Even if it is put into what amounts to a ground floor and a basement, a movie theatre complex would be useful and be a destination for tourists and locals alike. A live music venue should be encouraged on the street. If possible, I would even ask the Ottawa Little Theatre to move into a new space if it became available.
|
Prev
Linear Mode
