Hospitals in KW

[the_conestoga_guy]

I wonder if she lurks this board because I'm pretty certain we are the ones who initially started discussing using the auditorium property many months ago. It is absolutely the most sensible location and I know GRH is already considering it, though negotiating the transfer of land or buying it from the City of Kitchener would cost a fortune and health care does not have very deep pockets in this crappy country.

Putting a new auditorium nearer to downtown would be hard though - if not outright impossible. There is very little land where you could realistically build an auditorium that could hold thousands of people and provide a shit ton of parking (because let's face it, most sports fans are suburbanites who own cars and no the LRT isn't going to change that). Some people on this forum have suggested the old terminal Charles Street but anyone suggesting that needs to fire up their brain. You couldn't fit 1/6th the current building on the Charles Street site (it's about 200 by 90 meters). The entire terminal plot is only 145 by 75 meters, so there is absolutely not enough room for an auditorium complex, the associated building facilities and parking.

There really isn't a single place you could move it while keeping it in the existing urban areas of the city - or close to downtown - unless the city magically came into possession of something like Westmount Golf & Country Club because it's absurdly large compared to, say, the city owned golf courts but there is basically zero chance they would sell that land. Or actually...it might be possible to build a decently sized auditorium/convention centre thing beside the Stirling Road bridge that goes over the tracks (The Metz property is beside it). Currently there are a number of industrial and commercial properties there as well as some now vacant lots where factories once stood. It's pretty close to downtown, near Mill Station (and if we run an LRT down Ottawa in the future, that's even more rapid transit connections), not too far from 2 separate Highway 8 on/off ramps and because it's vaguely in the Rockway PARTS area there will be a lot of high density development going up and with that lots of retail/food options for anyone visiting a game or whatever. It would require a parking structure to handle parking but the site itself ought to be large enough to hold an auditorium and that. There are really no other options to build a decently sized facility in the city besides those...unless you put it in the suburbs.

I'm sorry for continuing the off-topic Aud relocation topic in this thread, but this comment really made me fire up my brain to look into the viability of having an arena located downtown in Kitchener.

First off, as has been reiterated ad-nauseam, the existing Charles Street location is sufficiently large enough fit a new arena, assuming parking is located off-site. I think that any Kitchener Rangers fan would love to have a venue like London's Budweiser Gardens, which itself would neatly fit on this site. Almost every modern venue constructed these days provides underground parking for the venue's logistical transport equipment, so there's no reason to assume Kitchener couldn't accommodate this, too. Additionally, Charles Street is plenty wide to accommodate full-sized transport trucks, so there would be zero issues moving hardware to and from the site.

This leaves parking as the only actual issue which could be argued. Exhibit A: London, a city which is just as car-dependent as Kitchener, manages to be the model for a successfully run OHL franchise with extremely limited on-site parking. Fans who drive to the games are expected to pay for parking at the nearby surface lots and walk to the arena. Kitchener shines in comparison, with it's density of parking garages located neatly within walking distance of the arena. Unfortunately for London, their bus system is fairly terrible - but it still provides an alternative for getting to games and concerts. Nonetheless, Bud gardens manages to constantly sell out their 10,000 seat arena. Speaking as someone who has attended games and concerts here in the past, the entire area adjacent to the arena is vibrant with people walking from their cars to the venue. I'm sure the local bars and restaurants experience increased traffic than they would if the arena wasn't there.

Exhibit B: Tim Horton's Field in Hamilton. A slightly different venue with a similar problem as the Charles Street Terminal: barely any on-site parking. This football stadium has an average per-game attendance of 21,461 despite only having 150 parking spaces. Hamilton manages this issue by providing park-and-ride shuttle bus service from many different areas in the city on game days. This situation is a little different, as an OHL arena is attended more frequently than football stadiums, but it does provide a clear local example of a city working around the logistical problem of parking.

The final nail in the coffin of this argument is that, while Hamilton and London manage to run model franchises without much surface parking, they're also managing without a rapid transit system stop directly on their doorstep! The issue of bringing suburban car drivers to a downtown arena isn't an issue of surface parking, it's an issue of logistics. I'm as cynical of the GRT as anyone, but I also recognize how equally-inept-public-transport cities like London and Hamilton manage just fine to run their venues.

To circle this back to the hospital relocation, the existing Aud is in desperate need of replacement in the medium-term future. I personally think the Aud property is the best suited for the new hospital, so I hope the City offers some insight in the near-term regarding the future of the Aud itself.