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Post on "placemaking" in Mississauga centre
Link to article
Mississauga aims to make city core people-friendly
Parks and game areas among recommendations in new report
Natalie Alcoba
National Post
Wednesday, September 20, 2006
A new vision for Mississauga's downtown proposes tearing down walls that hide a City Hall plaza, building an outdoor wedding chapel and creating a chain of connected parklands to draw residents to the city's core and make them want to spend time there.
The advice from a New York firm hired to help invigorate the unused spaces around City Hall includes many small suggestions: hanging flower baskets, chess and checker tables and outdoor vending kiosks.
But its more ambitious recommendations include redeveloping Duke of York Boulevard -- a busy thoroughfare that provides access to Square One mall -- into a low-rise, multi-use "main street."
But ambition appears to be abundant in this sprawling suburb of 700,000, as the city seeks an accessible, pedestrian-friendly downtown to cater to the growing number of people living there. Residential buildings scraping the sky prove the downtown is booming, even if it is hard to find anyone walking around.
"What is missing from our downtown is people," said Bruce Carr, director of the strategic planning and business services division in the city's planning and building department. "It's not being used. It's pretty dead space."
Two years ago, Mississauga sought guidance from New York's Project for Public Spaces [PPS], a non-profit organization that has helped hundreds of cities across the continent and around the world re-energize their public spaces. A draft of PPS's 60-page report "Building Mississauga Around Places" was presented to council last week and is available for viewing and feedback on the city's Web site. The final version is expected in the coming months.
"This was a place that was in triage," said PPS vice-president Phil Myrick, the principal author of the report. "The level of effort needed to make [the downtown] an attractive place was beyond what an average city staff can think through on its own. We were very happy to help them."
Mississauga's downtown -- located around Square One in the area of Burnhamthorpe Road and Hurontario Street -- already has key features in place: the Living Arts Centre and the central library. But these facilities stand separately, are poorly connected and are almost exclusively accessible by car, the report notes. The challenge is to pull the destinations together and make residents understand and enjoy them as parts of a whole.
"We want people here to think of Mississauga, not Toronto, when they want to go downtown," said Mr. Carr, who was yesterday interviewing candidates for a three-person team called Building a City for the Twenty First Century. The crew, led by Mr. Carr, will tackle Mississauga's redesign, charting a course for the downtown, the waterfront and neighbourhood development.
Change is already happening. Workers were busy yesterday shrinking massive Burnhamthorpe Road, near Duke of York Boulevard, from six lanes to five, making room for cars to parallel park. The idea came from residents who considered the roadway too daunting to cross.
The PPS report suggests transforming City Hall and the library into a "cohesive civic square" that is designed, operated and managed as an outdoor community centre.
New parklands will be created to encourage people to get outside and go exploring. The civic square will need tables with umbrellas; trees, awnings and tent structures to provide shelter; better lighting; kiosks; and an international newsstand to compel people to stay.
The report is bursting with ideas -- most of which came from public consultations with local residents -- but there is only so much a city can do. It spent $100,000 on the PPS report and another $100,000 from its budget to test a lineup of city centre programming this summer.
Mr. Carr said the entire makeover could cost $4- to $5-million -- much of it to develop the parks -- and funding would not be available until 2008. In the meantime, the city will continue with programming that has been a hit. Local restaurants showcased eclectic fare every Friday for lunch, and roads were closed at night to play basketball; there was an antique car show, a rib fest and concerts.
"We always thought the square in front of City Hall was too big because it was always empty. Now I look at it and I think it's too small," Mr. Carr said.
CITY RENEWAL
Ten of the recommendations of the "Building Mississauga Around Places" report:
- Outdoor wedding chapel
- Outdoor reading room in the library plaza, with a cafe, comfortable chairs and book racks
- Tent boutiques staffed by retailers and civic associations
- Rebuild and expand the City Hall skating rink
- A games area (bocce, chess, shuffleboard) for all ages
- A year-round, enclosed daily farmers' market
- A park with a fountain and major sculpture
- A tea house with outdoor seating to take it all in
- More and better signage at City Hall
- Bus stops strategically located around activities
Ran with fact box "City Renewal" which has been appended to the story.
Link to article
Mississauga aims to make city core people-friendly
Parks and game areas among recommendations in new report
Natalie Alcoba
National Post
Wednesday, September 20, 2006
A new vision for Mississauga's downtown proposes tearing down walls that hide a City Hall plaza, building an outdoor wedding chapel and creating a chain of connected parklands to draw residents to the city's core and make them want to spend time there.
The advice from a New York firm hired to help invigorate the unused spaces around City Hall includes many small suggestions: hanging flower baskets, chess and checker tables and outdoor vending kiosks.
But its more ambitious recommendations include redeveloping Duke of York Boulevard -- a busy thoroughfare that provides access to Square One mall -- into a low-rise, multi-use "main street."
But ambition appears to be abundant in this sprawling suburb of 700,000, as the city seeks an accessible, pedestrian-friendly downtown to cater to the growing number of people living there. Residential buildings scraping the sky prove the downtown is booming, even if it is hard to find anyone walking around.
"What is missing from our downtown is people," said Bruce Carr, director of the strategic planning and business services division in the city's planning and building department. "It's not being used. It's pretty dead space."
Two years ago, Mississauga sought guidance from New York's Project for Public Spaces [PPS], a non-profit organization that has helped hundreds of cities across the continent and around the world re-energize their public spaces. A draft of PPS's 60-page report "Building Mississauga Around Places" was presented to council last week and is available for viewing and feedback on the city's Web site. The final version is expected in the coming months.
"This was a place that was in triage," said PPS vice-president Phil Myrick, the principal author of the report. "The level of effort needed to make [the downtown] an attractive place was beyond what an average city staff can think through on its own. We were very happy to help them."
Mississauga's downtown -- located around Square One in the area of Burnhamthorpe Road and Hurontario Street -- already has key features in place: the Living Arts Centre and the central library. But these facilities stand separately, are poorly connected and are almost exclusively accessible by car, the report notes. The challenge is to pull the destinations together and make residents understand and enjoy them as parts of a whole.
"We want people here to think of Mississauga, not Toronto, when they want to go downtown," said Mr. Carr, who was yesterday interviewing candidates for a three-person team called Building a City for the Twenty First Century. The crew, led by Mr. Carr, will tackle Mississauga's redesign, charting a course for the downtown, the waterfront and neighbourhood development.
Change is already happening. Workers were busy yesterday shrinking massive Burnhamthorpe Road, near Duke of York Boulevard, from six lanes to five, making room for cars to parallel park. The idea came from residents who considered the roadway too daunting to cross.
The PPS report suggests transforming City Hall and the library into a "cohesive civic square" that is designed, operated and managed as an outdoor community centre.
New parklands will be created to encourage people to get outside and go exploring. The civic square will need tables with umbrellas; trees, awnings and tent structures to provide shelter; better lighting; kiosks; and an international newsstand to compel people to stay.
The report is bursting with ideas -- most of which came from public consultations with local residents -- but there is only so much a city can do. It spent $100,000 on the PPS report and another $100,000 from its budget to test a lineup of city centre programming this summer.
Mr. Carr said the entire makeover could cost $4- to $5-million -- much of it to develop the parks -- and funding would not be available until 2008. In the meantime, the city will continue with programming that has been a hit. Local restaurants showcased eclectic fare every Friday for lunch, and roads were closed at night to play basketball; there was an antique car show, a rib fest and concerts.
"We always thought the square in front of City Hall was too big because it was always empty. Now I look at it and I think it's too small," Mr. Carr said.
CITY RENEWAL
Ten of the recommendations of the "Building Mississauga Around Places" report:
- Outdoor wedding chapel
- Outdoor reading room in the library plaza, with a cafe, comfortable chairs and book racks
- Tent boutiques staffed by retailers and civic associations
- Rebuild and expand the City Hall skating rink
- A games area (bocce, chess, shuffleboard) for all ages
- A year-round, enclosed daily farmers' market
- A park with a fountain and major sculpture
- A tea house with outdoor seating to take it all in
- More and better signage at City Hall
- Bus stops strategically located around activities
Ran with fact box "City Renewal" which has been appended to the story.
