Charles St GRT terminal redevelopment

[jeffster]

An article about the next steps for the former terminal.

https://www.therecord.com/news-story/970...-for-at-le

I think a new larger arena, like Bud Gardens would be perfect there.  There is lots of parking, transit, everything you need.... And the restaurants would benefit huge !!!

EDIT NOTE: For some reason, I thought I had posted this already, but apparently I did not (as I was looking for my post and it wasn't there -- some just some thoughts on this property not being great for an area)....

Maybe -- I am not 100% sure it would be large enough.

Secondly, we've been spoiled with The Aud and it's free parking (mostly). I am unsure how some would feel about having to walk distances to get to arena, though it doesn't seem like a huge issue for London (but I think they have way more parking than Kitchener).

Another issue is the cost of parking for the workers. There are a lot of part-timers at The Aud that do drive to work, and paying $15 for parking out of their wages for a 4 hour shift wouldn't be worth it. And same with full-timers, who likely wouldn't be happy with forking over $180 monthly for parking.

Again, I am unsure how London deals with these matters, or even Guelph maybe, but it is something to think about.

Others posted that it could be a good site for a convention site. I do agree that it might work as such, as the tri-city area is lacking this. I can't imagine us using the entire footprint being used, as urbd pointed out that this is 12,000 m2, or about 129,000 sf, but even if we were to use 100,000 for convention centre space, with a decent sized public square, I think it might work. There could be underground parking, perhaps 2 floors of convention centre space (so 200,000 square feet), and perhaps add a 20 floor hotel on one side and a 30+ floor condo/apartment on the other side. Obviously this would take deep pockets and I am under that either the city or the region would want to go into a PPP (since the city/region would do the convention centre, and privately the hotel and condo/apartment would be separate). They could ease development charges for a condo/apartment IF a certain percentage was low-income housing.

But as for an auditorium, I still think that The Aud will end up using Centennial for a new facility and perhaps somehow convert the old Aud into a large indoor parking garage and keep the twin pads.