Chicken-egg issue tough to crack
Which comes first, people or place? In beleaguered downtown Hamilton, a developer is trying for the latter
MELISSA DUNNE
Special to The Globe and Mail
May 6, 2008
Harry Stinson wants to see Steeltown give Hogtown a run for its money.
Toronto's dethroned condo king thinks Hamilton's down-on-its-luck urban core can become a hipster's paradise akin to Toronto's Queen Street West or Vancouver's Gastown.
"Hamilton's core reminds me of situations I've seen before - it's really different than the gritty image that has deterred people from living here," he says. "I'm not a chamber of commerce type of guy, but I've found myself getting involved in how to change the image of downtown Hamilton."
All it needs is a little TLC from developers and planners - and some people to live there, he suggests. And therein lies the chicken-or-egg challenge confronting those who are seeking to reinvigorate urban cores: How to attract people to live downtown when there's no (attractive) there there; or, the flip side, how to entice developers and small-business owners to invest, with the hope that (affluent) people will move there.
Mr. Stinson has expressed an interest in getting involved in the stalled redevelopment of two landmark downtown Hamilton properties that now sit empty: the former Royal Connaught hotel building and an early 20th century office and shopping centre known as the Lister Block.
"The Royal Connaught and Lister have become symbolic of inertia," he says. "If I can fix them up, that may have a multiplier effect."
The 92-year-old Connaught was closed in 2004 after a string of owners tried to keep it going. Now, it's Mr. Stinson's turn: In February, he agreed to buy it from local businessmen for $9.5-million.
Mr. Stinson says the deal has been "firmed up" and he has raised the funding from a wide range of private partners. When he takes possession at the end of June, he plans on converting the building into condos and a boutique hotel. He also plans to build two other buildings on the property, most likely a condo tower and retail space, including a grocery store. It will take between four to five years to complete all of the projects and they will be worth close to $300-million when finished, he estimates.
Like other mid-sized cities, Hamilton, with a traditional steel and heavy manufacturing sector, is trying reinvent itself as a hip place. It's not easy to do when empty parking lots, boarded-up buildings and a mall that has seen better days stand out in the downtown.
Just as Hamilton is trying to shed its underdog image, Mr. Stinson, too, is attempting to rebuild his persona. After his Candy Factory loft project on Toronto's Queen Street West strip ignited a condominium boom in the late nineties, he was dubbed Canada's answer to Donald Trump. Now, he's trying to bounce back after filing for bankruptcy protection last year. "I'm a battered reject from Toronto," he says, "which seems to make me more acceptable in Hamilton."
The developer has long been a proponent of downtown as a place where a diverse group of citizens can live, work, and play 24/7. While the current scene in downtown Hamilton may look bleak to an outsider, he sees the core as simmering with potential.
He says developers and building owners can be that spark if they choose to invest the time, money and effort. But he says many have a "schizophrenic pessimism" about the downtown: They will buy properties optimistic that they may "be worth something" down the road. But then they become pessimistic about the downtown and getting a return on investment and decide the property is not worth fixing up.
Before the sixties, downtown streets in Southern Ontario "were full of life," recalls Ron Marini, Hamilton's downtown development director. Today, downtown Hamilton is not much different from other mid-sized cities ravaged by the flight to the suburbs and decades of ill-advised planning and developments.
Now it's trying to undo or at least lessen the impact of some of those initiatives.
To accommodate the growing use of the automobile in the fifties and sixties, Hamilton converted many streets to one-way. In recent years, it has reverted some of them to two-way in a bid to make downtown streets more pedestrian friendly.
In the early seventies, Hamilton emulated many cities and opened the downtown Jackson Square Mall, which was added to in 1990 with the Eaton Centre.
Today, part of Jackson Square has been closed to shopping, while the remaining retail area houses mostly B- and C-class stores, says Pierre Fillion, a University of Waterloo urban planner.
Just 10 years after opening, the Eaton's centre was sold for 5 per cent of its construction costs, he says. Part of it, renamed Hamilton City Centre, now serves as an interim city hall.
The city has taken an aggressive approach to drum up some optimism and interest in the core, Mr. Marini says.
Since one of the biggest deterrents for developing in the core is dealing with city hall bureaucracy, Hamilton created its first downtown renewal division, which Mr. Marini heads, in a bid to streamline the process for developers.
The city also has a "very aggressive incentives program," he says, that has lent or committed to lend more than $26-million to developers who are converting commercial space into apartments, building new apartments, or renovating existing apartments. The goals is to create more than 1,450 residential units.
The thinking goes that if a city can get young professionals and empty-nesters to live downtown, retail will follow, eventually attracting office usage back to the core. But the problem remains: How to persuade people to live downtown when their favoured stores and jobs are in the suburbs.
"There is very little in urban services, in terms of places to get milk and food - it's all Timmy's," Mr. Stinson says, referring to downtown Hamilton and the Tim Hortons coffee shop chain. "The street life is dreary, there's bad dollar stores and cheque-cashing stores."
Still, the renewed interest from government at all levels and developers, such as Mr. Stinson, in fixing downtown cores has given many the sense that real change is on the horizon.
"Downtown Hamilton is on the rebound," Mr. Marini declares. "It has seen its worst days."
