Charles St GRT terminal redevelopment

[danbrotherston]

There are many reasons. 

For one, the priorities are wrong. We shouldn’t be spending money on a new arena, and the planner is utterly naive to believe we can get it for free. Sporting venues very often end up being a complete quagmire. 

For two, there are so many much more valuable things we can do in that space. Many want an indigenous centre, but even if you’re not on board with that it’s at the centre of our city, a high density and intensity of use is vastly better than something that gets used a handful of days a week at best.

For three, the location is poor. I hate that we live in a car dependent city, but we do, and especially a venue like an arena will demand a huge amount of parking, and because of the lack of vision of most people in our society, they won’t even consider the Benton garage, so it will result in a huge amount of parking added downtown. Worse, it’s actually a dense residential area meaning nights it is used there will be significant disruption to many more peoples lives.

Do you want a fourth reason?  I think it’s a waste to build a new arena, the Aud is fine, the current location is good, it could easily be renovated.  The same people demanding a new arena will throw a tantrum if you plan to demolish anything more than 60 years old.

Also a typo in my first:  *frustrating how few *see* it

For better or for worse, I think that the city of Kitchener will be building a replacement to the Aud sometime in the future. For the sake of argument, I'm assuming this to be the case. Obviously I think there are more pressing matters for our tax dollars to go towards; I'm just operating in this assumed future scenario.

If we assume that the city will be building a new venue, I think the most important question is "where should it be constructed such that we can provide the greatest economic impact per tax dollar invested?" 

I personally look to cities like Winnipeg and London, and observe the successes/mistakes/lessons from each of them. They constructed similar sized arenas on similar sized plots of land as the Charles St Terminal. London, for example, built a new arena with minimal new parking, and they're just as car-dependent as Kitchener. Plus, they didn't have an LRT stop next door to the site. There are tons of arguments against this kind of development, but I don't think access to parking should be one of them.

I do agree that there will be increased traffic downtown as a result, and that will be disruptive to the downtown residents. But, not to sound too harsh, that's probably a good thing for the downtown businesses? Further investment by the city into active-transportation infrastructure in combination with the LRT will hopefully mitigate the car traffic from nearby residents. The remaining cars will likely be people entering the city core from the suburbs, the same people who have been saying "there's no reason to go downtown after 5pm." These are people who will be visiting downtown who might otherwise never do so, and could now have the opportunity/excuse to shop at the downtown businesses.

London is a good counter example. That being said, London downtown is also utterly gutted in comparison to Kitcheners downtown, I'm not sure it's a model we should aim for.

As for business, I'm not sure it does help businesses. People who go to an arena, might buy food downtown, or they might just go somewhere else, then drive to the arena. This kind of behaviour has been seen before, I know it was studied in LA, but I'm sure it has happened other places.

I'm no economist or planner, but AFAIK the traditional pump up downtown schemes usually fail, and the best way to actually help downtown businesses is to have people LIVE downtown, certainly we are moving that direction, but there is still huge demand for housing.

Instead of asking "where is the best place for an arena", I'd ask what is the best use for that particular site. I think "arena" would be pretty far down the list.

But I suspect you're right, Kitchener probably won't be building a new arena any time soon. Despite how much the city does seem to love these bullshit kinda investments (I'm looking at you The Museum advertising helicopter), it takes a decade to do anything and I don't think they're really even thinking about it right now, so this whole discussion is probably academic.

FWIW though, "selling this plot to the highest bidder for condos" probably isn't top of my list of best uses for the site either, but it is the one I expect will happen.