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Mall Retail (Cambridge Centre, Conestoga, Fairview)
(02-11-2018, 10:14 AM)tomh009 Wrote: Which city? Kitchener does have enclosed walkways from Market Square to both the old city hall and to Crown Plaza. That's not many, but greater than zero.

The Region of Waterloo. I am aware of the Kitchener links. Speaking of Kitchener, I think the whole institutional precinct from Market Square through the courthouse and over to regional headquarters and Centre in the Square is the sort of area where I would like to see indoor connections between buildings, and new buildings designed to connect to nearby buildings. It’s an area where all the buildings are large public buildings and there are lots of people. As a result, many would benefit from the links and it’s feasible for the various buildings to negotiate appropriate links. Also the cost of the links is relatively small compared to overall construction costs.

And of course installing links like this makes public transit more attractive if the walk between transit and the destination may be taken partially or entirely indoors.

But I’m not just talking about big bridges which I recognize are expensive, and depending on how and where they are constructed may have questionable aesthetics or other problems. There are many missed opportunities for smaller scale protection. I’m thinking of a strip mall with a roof in front of some of the stores. But it ends arbitrarily at a corner, and then the entrance to the office building at the end of the mall has its entrance over some distance, not connected to the roof.

Or the University, where building projects in that last couple of years provided the opportunity, not taken, to put bus waiting areas indoors, with windows allowing to see the bus coming and a roof covering most of the distance to the actual point where the bus stops.

Or the new building at Waterloo Town Square, where there is a canopy over some entrance doors but not others. It makes me think that the designer thinks of the canopy strictly as a visual architectural feature and not as a practical operational feature of the building.

And by protected walkways, I don’t just mean fully-enclosed climate-controlled walkways; I mean any sort of protection, even down to just a roof over a path to catch precipitation but not affect cold temperature or wind. St. Jerome’s has some of these; but in building their new building they inexplicably cut an existing one short so that it doesn’t reach the new building. This proves it’s not about cost; they paid extra to remove an existing roof!
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Messages In This Thread
RE: Mall Retail - by MacBerry - 11-01-2014, 09:18 PM
RE: Mall Retail - by DHLawrence - 11-02-2014, 01:44 AM
RE: Mall Retail - by neonjoe - 11-02-2014, 08:11 AM
RE: Mall Retail - by The85 - 11-16-2014, 03:22 PM
RE: Mall Retail - by panamaniac - 11-16-2014, 05:27 PM
RE: Mall Retail - by zanate - 11-17-2014, 02:45 PM
RE: Mall Retail - by panamaniac - 11-17-2014, 05:12 PM
RE: Mall Retail - by TMKM94 - 11-17-2014, 05:38 PM
RE: Mall Retail - by Drake - 11-27-2014, 06:27 PM
RE: Mall Retail - by TMKM94 - 11-28-2014, 02:19 AM
RE: Mall Retail - by TMKM94 - 11-28-2014, 02:33 AM
RE: Mall Retail - by Canard - 05-17-2015, 06:33 PM
RE: Mall Retail (Cambridge Centre, Conestoga, Fairview) - by ijmorlan - 02-11-2018, 10:49 AM
RE: General Retail News - by panamaniac - 05-27-2015, 09:39 AM
RE: General Retail News - by panamaniac - 05-19-2016, 12:20 PM

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