Manulife (King Centre) redevelopment project

[ijmorlan]

I'd be interested in seeing that mall you are talking about in the Netherlands for comparison. Disclaimer: I've never been in this building, except I think laser tag was in here when I was a child? There isn't much going on street interaction wise would help this building succeed as a mall, but I don't think that means it would be destined for failure. Personally, I wouldn't care if a business was in this building or directly on King St. I would only care if it's a business I want to go to. It would be in walking distance either way. I think I would actually be quite happy to have both styles of shopping downtown.

Exactly. Not promoting this building as an awesome building, but let’s do a thought experiment. Rip the building down and replace it with a narrow street or even a pedestrianized lane starting at King St. and running over to Joseph, with shops on both sides. All the urban planning city builders would love it right? OK, but how different is that hypothetical construction from the present building (when it was a mall)? You walk off King St., and follow a pedestrianized lane starting at King St. and running over to Joseph with stores on either side.

I just find it absolutely inconceivable that the problem is the presence of a roof and climate control.

Now what could be the problem, or at least a significant problem, is the fact that the “pedestrianized lane” does not actually meet Charles St. but instead flies over it a floor up; as far as I know there wasn’t even a way to get to Charles St. from the corridor at all, never mind a convenient and obvious one; and then further over, as far as I know there was no access to Joseph St. (I assume there must have been a fire exit but I’m talking about a normal route). So for no particularly good reason it was a dead-end “lane” (corridor) starting at King St. rather than a lane with 2 segments of one block each.

It doesn’t help that the building manages to present a “back wall” to both sides of Charles St. at once.