01-08-2022, 02:36 PM
Another long-time lurker, first-time poster. I've been in Kitchener all my life, living in downtown Kitchener for the last 15 years. Selfishly, expanding Victoria Park is my favourite option because it gives the city a rare opportunity to invest in the quality of city living itself. For walking, running, cycling routes, festivals, etc it expands the options for living downtown. You also gain the benefit of directly connecting Victoria Park to King Street/City Hall, which could lead to some very interesting pedestrian-only use cases in the future, and making it more attractive for park visitors to engage with downtown businesses.
I'm not sure if I attached an image correctly here, and I'm not an urban planner or architect, but to me creating a sense of place is important. Downtown needs to be a place people are in 24/7, not just during special events. I tried to achieve that in the map view.
Personally, I'm also in favour of moving the Aud or building some kind of multi-purpose event centre with residential on top. I live by the Market, the walking experience to go to the Aud is abysmal unless you go entirely through the residential neighbourhoods to East Ave.
Yes, there is the LRT, but the walking experience on Ottawa Street is terrible. Maybe with 10+ years of redevelopment it will be more appealing, but today, to walk from the LRT stop to the Aud you need to walk through a Tim Horton's parking lot up a hill. You have to use narrow sidewalks on a busy, arterial road – passing by a bunch of closed storefronts, a few empty lots (that are being redeveloped), an abandoned car dealership, a large plaza that's mostly a parking lot that's not great at night, and through another busy weirdly shaped intersection where drivers don't stop at the red light before turning right. The other side of the street is two churches and a bowling alley, far apart, and not really interactive in the evening. I have no issue walking through the downtown core by myself at night, but I would not feel comfortable with this route at night. Contrast this with Charles Street, and the LRT is either at the doors, or a short walk down a main street with residential towers and retail on either side. If you lived in the suburbs, and your option was to park at either mall or Blockline and take the LRT or drive, which transit + walking option is going to give you fewer excuses to take transit?
The city lacks evening draws – where is the live music? where are the concerts? where are the art shows? conferences? You can drive to Maxwell's (suburban), walk to Center in the Square (vaguely downtown but far enough its its own destination), and drive to Bingemans? The Tannery can only host events for up to 200 people. To make the city liveable we need this kind of stuff in the city, not 3km from where the majority of new downtown residential is being built. If I'm dreaming, something to help create more culture in downtown is what I'd want as an outcome of this space.
I'm not sure if I attached an image correctly here, and I'm not an urban planner or architect, but to me creating a sense of place is important. Downtown needs to be a place people are in 24/7, not just during special events. I tried to achieve that in the map view.
- You could fit 2 Pharmacy School shaped buildings around the borders – this would allow for residential construction and hopefully create some affordable housing and some more family-oriented buildings. You could also fit 2 Charlie Wests for denser residential but the street interaction isn't as great with the square podium vs rectangle.
- As part of the land sale, the city could require publicly available parking in both building podiums – allowing the removal of the surface lot.
- Retail or community space could be in the podium along both sides of the building, creating engaging streets but also creating indoor environments to make the park more attractive for non-Covid winter hangouts.
- You would have a new park area that's ~75% of the area that's currently used for events like Ribfest or the Multicultural Festival, so these events could grow and be closer the downtown core – hopefully creating spillover business to downtown retail.
Personally, I'm also in favour of moving the Aud or building some kind of multi-purpose event centre with residential on top. I live by the Market, the walking experience to go to the Aud is abysmal unless you go entirely through the residential neighbourhoods to East Ave.
Yes, there is the LRT, but the walking experience on Ottawa Street is terrible. Maybe with 10+ years of redevelopment it will be more appealing, but today, to walk from the LRT stop to the Aud you need to walk through a Tim Horton's parking lot up a hill. You have to use narrow sidewalks on a busy, arterial road – passing by a bunch of closed storefronts, a few empty lots (that are being redeveloped), an abandoned car dealership, a large plaza that's mostly a parking lot that's not great at night, and through another busy weirdly shaped intersection where drivers don't stop at the red light before turning right. The other side of the street is two churches and a bowling alley, far apart, and not really interactive in the evening. I have no issue walking through the downtown core by myself at night, but I would not feel comfortable with this route at night. Contrast this with Charles Street, and the LRT is either at the doors, or a short walk down a main street with residential towers and retail on either side. If you lived in the suburbs, and your option was to park at either mall or Blockline and take the LRT or drive, which transit + walking option is going to give you fewer excuses to take transit?
The city lacks evening draws – where is the live music? where are the concerts? where are the art shows? conferences? You can drive to Maxwell's (suburban), walk to Center in the Square (vaguely downtown but far enough its its own destination), and drive to Bingemans? The Tannery can only host events for up to 200 people. To make the city liveable we need this kind of stuff in the city, not 3km from where the majority of new downtown residential is being built. If I'm dreaming, something to help create more culture in downtown is what I'd want as an outcome of this space.