What does DTK need?

[tomh009]

Someone mentioned potentially providing a retail  tax break for retailers in the dt Core. I actually think this could be a clever solution to encourage a larger anchor to set up an urban format store in Kitchener. I wouldn't mind if we looked at a commercial tax break to entice corporations and businesses to establish offices in the core. Losing, Manulife, Sunlife, Rogers radio and Stantec where blows. It would have been nice if CTV had set up shop dtk instead of out near sportsworld. We already "subsidize" suburban office parks/ power centres. 

That was me. We now have people lots of people living downtown (and more coming as buildings are completed), we (still) have lots of office workers, we have lots of restaurants and coffee shops. Retail is the challenge, and a good selection of small/specialy retail, even without a large big-name store, would help people come downtown to shop. Even more services: hair salons, massage therapy, physio, electronics repair and other things that cannot be delivered by Amazon.

Eliminating hte property tax wouldn't be a massive subsidy but it would convince some retailers to locate downtown and get a solid start before the tax holiday ends.