What do you think of this project?

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I’d be fine with this if it had a short clause for 3-4 years. But then it needs teeth to be shutdown. The challenge is that I doubt the market for a highrise dramatically shifts in 4 years.

So do we want this for 10-15 years? Or the current crap? Or hope another buyer steps up?

Westrich has numerous highrise lots in the pipeline as well, so even if conditions improve, will this go ahead before ice tower 1 & 2? Or their grandin tower?
 
So on one side we have a property that is currently completely and utterly unacceptable. On one hand we have one option of making the site unacceptable but not a hazard and not a complete eyesore. On the other hand, we currently have hopes and dreams but that's it. There is no demand for an office tower right now and obviously, regardless of what we may think, no interest in building a new hotel. Can we maybe get this tiny proposal to happen but an extremely Limited time limit to get something built as one of the requirements? At least this way the proposal actually is slightly better than leaving its status quo
 
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Westrich is moving in the right direction with regard to vacant land but there should be NO vehicle parking on site, period. The cafe is a positive step but add more seacans and offer venders from the farmers market the opportunity to sell product outside of farmers market hours. In the process, you might get a tenant for the CRUs in the new building once it is built. The whole point is to activate, and add value to the area, we all know that parking lots do neither. If you want people to park there, add bicycle/scooter parking instead.
 
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The irony of this entire forum being up in arms about the Arlington parking lot that is not in central downtown versus some being supportive of this in the centre of our city shows a lot of hypocrisy. Come on. I doubt we’ll hear from Ian given he works for Westrich, but even he must be enraged that he had to put this proposal forward given his position on downtown.
 
The parking proposed holds 73 cars satisfying 73 people, in downtown that is nothing. You should be aiming to satisfy at least 200 people.
 
Gus Haynes said:
Not really fair for any of us to speculate as to Ian's state of mind -- as a company man, he could never publicly criticize his employer. It's probably best to leave it at that.
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Pretty easy to infer what he thinks given his thoughts about downtown parking elsewhere. Plenty of people in the world have to do things at work even though they may not agree with their employers overall direction. But yes, given the conflict, we won’t hear from him on this one.
 
I don't begrudge Westrich for proposing this. And I'm glad there is interest in the site. But doesn't mean the proposal should proceed.

As we've all said, whoever owns this site, the expectation should be that it is cleaned up and not left as is botttomline.

Perhaps something can be negotiated to find other alternatives to a parking lot - some have already been noted here such as a food truck type lot, park space, or activity space.
 
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Something like this would be great!
 
I think this would be semi-ok if there was some sort of activation on the southeast corner as well. As proposed, this does nothing to activate the current dead-end of RHW.
 
No way should the city let this be a parking lot. The seacan coffee shop is a great idea, but make the rest of the property into a green space/park until market conditions improve enough to justify building a tower on the site.

If we let Westrich put in a parking lot, saying market conditions don’t justify a tower right now, or for the foreseeable future, it could be 10+ years until we get rid of it.
 
For perspective, zoning is to be applied and enforced completely independent of who owns the land or who is proposing the project.

For additional perspective, how many of those supporting this project because it’s potentially “better than”” would still support it if Raj was proposing it rather than Ian?

And how many of those who would be happy to have this approved because Ian was proposing it only to find out the sale didn’t close and Raj was then entitled to do this would still be happy?

Zoning entitlements and approvals run with the land, not with the ownership…
 
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