I have always been a bit skeptical about the park being a catalyst for a bunch of wonderful new buildings. It is not a magic wand and does not make all the other issues related to the area go away - lack of enough great jobs downtown, lack of great retail, safety concerns, cleanliness ...

I get the Premier may want to humour these people some because they are voting for her or likely to vote for her, but really enough! Don't go on about how it may be the US Department of Defense doing this and add to the conspiracy theory smorgasbord, which is already too much.

Yes, lots of people just looking for an affordable place to live in a decent location. Not every building has to be an architectural masterpiece and as well as adding more people in the area, it will be a real improvement on what is there now.

Not surprising. The Feds really mishandled the CEBA loan repayment situation. A number of small businesses were forced to use up much of their cash or get predatory loans to pay it off.

The building proposed seems fairly decent and will nicely fill in a gap on Jasper Ave. If the rail line ends a bit before, say at a sensible place like a bit south closer to the LRT station, its not the end of the world, really.

Yes, the area is a big part of why this may work. For instance, it could also attract people who live in these areas but don't want a SFH anymore, perhaps because their family is grown and they want to travel more, but who still want to be nearby.

Yes, if they are going to build something in a year or two, I can understand and it makes sense to tear it down. But if it is going to be 5 or 10 years it would be better to keep and use it in the meantime as it is actually a still a usable building.

Not surprised, the Suya House never seemed busy when I went by. Sadly this end of 106 St is really doing poorly now. I hope something fills the old budget space. I think it has some good possibilities for a variety of uses.

I also walked through them regularly previously and liked them. I agree the rear portion in particular was not well utilized or properly cared for and it became neglected. I do hope the renewal will result in a nice and better space, but I feel many of the problems relate to the location...

The old stuff does not surprise me. Sadly, we do not have much of it here and don't always cherish what we have left. I haven't been to Winnipeg for quite a while, so not sure what those newer buildings there look like. Do you have any pictures/examples?

Yes, but there is already LRT to the NE, SW and SE. I experienced bridge closures here in the past, when I lived on the south side and worked downtown at a time with fewer LRT options than now. Yes there was some inconvenience, but we all managed and I don't think it actually hurt downtown...

I think COVID shutting down downtown for over two years probably had a lot more to do with it. The mall has been steadily losing tenants for several years before they took over and were madly shuffling around some of the remaining ones because of moving the food area and replacing the lower...

It probably has more to do with a preference for a more visible street front location, rather than about the owners of the mall. Although suburban malls are popular here, not every retail business wants to be in an indoor mall.

Very close. I would say this is all an excuse for pandering to her TBA base. Let's be honest, Smith is not some sort of moderate being reluctantly forced to do these things but that will be their spin after the leadership vote.

Yes, both office space and residential downtown have grown considerably over the years. I feel more negative comments are probably from people who haven't been here long enough to notice the change. The residential growth rate averaging around 1.8% per year using the above figure, seems fairly...

Yeah, age discrimination must be imaginary. One day you may be in for a very rude shock.

Yes, the retail vampires. How appropriate, as they do continue to suck the life out of our downtown. So many big retailers coming here can't seem to look past WEM or the latest flashy power centre. I do have to give this company credit for trying to get past that conventional thinking and...

An outdoor venue that can host up to 50,000 is not a smaller venue and that was what I was responding to. Simple as that. There seems to be scope creep in this discussion

Probably good it is temporary. I think those people way back will need binoculars or maybe a telescope. Don't we already have a good size outdoor concert venue, that has been around for decades and actually had a couple of successful big events recently this summer?

It is more complicated than that and is a real chicken and egg problem - if there are not many jobs, a bunch of empty store fronts, with not much retail variety and you have to drive to get many basics, why would many people want to move downtown? Cities that have thriving downtowns have many...