Manulife (King Centre) redevelopment project

[ijmorlan]

Victoriaville Mall in Thunder Bay is an example of where they "mallilfied" a street. That particular case was to not-so-great effect and it arguably contributed to decline in the surrounding area as well by cutting off two major thoroughfares. It's really hard to say for sure that the mall did it, though, as there are really a multitude of factors to consider.

Yeah, there's something about a roof that doesn't always work out. Arcades can work but not always. I don't know. ijmorlan's arguments about roofs seem to make sense but yet there are examples of where it doesn't work.

I often think about St-Roch in Quebec and how they had a covered street that really did not work. Works better without a roof now. Here's a quite good article in French from 15 years ago about the de-roofing of that street (I guess you can use Google Translate)?

https://www.ledevoir.com/societe/122561/...saint-roch

I consider it an extraordinary claim that a roof, per se, can ruin things; extraordinary evidence is required. Not sure what that evidence would be, but I’m not the one claiming a roof can ruin things.

I note that jamincan mentioned that Victoriaville Mall cut off two major thoroughfares; maybe that was the actual problem? I don’t know anything about the St-Roch example, but I think the article is saying the place filled up with homeless people, some of whom (not all, but let’s get real) actually are nuisances. If this is true, then removing the roof is really just an example of hostile architecture. It might be needed, if other strategies aren’t working to make the place attractive to people for whom the stores are more important than the roof, but it doesn’t fundamentally undermine my position.