A better approach might be to offer the banks a space that they'd rather use. Almost all of the condo podiums we've seen have included a single storey of retail at ground level. I'm sure if a developer put together a second storey space that was easily accessible and designated for retail/commercial uses at a lower $psf cost than the ground floor option (but still included at least a small storefront to allow for street-level branding) banks would happily take the cheaper rent. Even if a bank were to leave the tellers on the ground floor while moving all of the offices and services to the second floor it would free up space for restaurants and retailers
 
If anyone can afford top-dollar rental fees for ground-floor retail downtown, it's the big banks. Sorry, they don't need any more breaks than they already have.
 
It's not about giving them a break on the rent to help the banks' bottom line, it's about enticing them to set up shop somewhere other than on the ground floor where they suck the life out of the street. We get better ground floor uses, they get better office space, and the city comes out ahead because we've now doubled the uses for the podium. And then that sort of office space could always be repurposed later for small professional offices, clinics, etc.
 
Lenser said:
If anyone can afford top-dollar rental fees for ground-floor retail downtown, it's the big banks. Sorry, they don't need any more breaks than they already have.
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Then you don't get to rid them of their large storefront locations.
 
No you don't. But unless you actually can get the city to legislate the banks being relegated to second-floor locations downtown (fat chance), then there has to be some kind of Plan B. What that might be, I can't imagine.

I mean, what's next? Legislate against coffee chains? Big-name resto chains? How far do we take it, and who really benefits from this favouritism? Who oversees it? Don't we have enough in the way of bureaucratic red tape already? We can't even get our transit act together at anything but a glacial pace.

Don't get me wrong - I hate the tyranny of big banks and Starbucks sucking the life out of many a corner downtown, but I don't see any kind of coherent plan in place to combat that kind of pattern.
 
I should clarify: the Starbucks are a drag for their sheer vanilla ubiquity. Seeing so many of them in the core is faintly depressing. That said, bank outlets are even worse because they're sterile corporate entities imparting zero character - they do nothing for street vibrancy at all. I do wish both categories occupied less of our prominent real estate.
 
That is too true about bank frontage but this is business. Seriously, the banks are paying very good money for that space and shouldn't be expected to accept anything but value for the money they are paying.
 
Yeah, they have the bucks and that's why they get preferred allocations. I can't see them being on board with being relegated by the city to secondary locations. Why punish successful businesses? There has to be other options we can resort to.
 
It's not just the fact that banks and Starbucks have money. The main reason they are able to secure prime retail space so easily is due to their stability and the image that their brands portray. 'The Starbucks Effect" is a real thing, and a landlord would be stupid to refuse space to them.

The BMO in CityPlace at the base of Luna for example, is one of the best tenants you can get as a landlord. Financially stable, reliable, strong brand, uses minimal building services, and generates absolutely no complaints from other tenants or the public in the surrounding area.
 
Of course, one of the reasons zoning exists is so that development decisions are not strictly financial. I've never seen them do it for banks (nor am I necessarily advocating for it), but the City can draft site-specific zoning by-laws for these types of redevelopments to restrict certain uses and/or control how much frontage is taken by particular uses. I just don't think that the quality of the retail, and the impact it has on the streetscape, is something the City gives a lot of thought to. We don't likely want the City making leasing decisions, but there are ways that a zoning by-law can gently guide certain aspects of the retail make-up, such that undesirable scenarios are avoided. Again, not advocating for this - just saying that the tools exist.

Personally, I am not so fussed with bank branches. Disappointing perhaps (if one was expecting an interesting retailer or restaurant), but nonetheless an important part of every community.

What annoys me (and the banks are not the only culprit - hello, Shoppers Drug Mart) are the window films that turn windows into opaque billboards, and effectively create blank walls along the street. To me, that has a far greater adverse impact than whether or not a space is leased to a bank. That is something the City should be controlling.
 
whatever said:
A better approach might be to offer the banks a space that they'd rather use. Almost all of the condo podiums we've seen have included a single storey of retail at ground level. I'm sure if a developer put together a second storey space that was easily accessible and designated for retail/commercial uses at a lower $psf cost than the ground floor option (but still included at least a small storefront to allow for street-level branding) banks would happily take the cheaper rent. Even if a bank were to leave the tellers on the ground floor while moving all of the offices and services to the second floor it would free up space for restaurants and retailers
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Why would a developer want to go to the expense of installing an elevator to that mezanine level? There is no financial benefit to that, and it would be hard to lease to any sucessor tenant, so who would want to buy that commercial unit? Banks are good tenants who take space and pay for it, on time, all the time. Why would a landlord prefer a higher risk tenant over a bank?
 
I seem to remember a time (early 80's maybe) when there was a worry about the health of streetscapes because those old time bank branches that sat on the four corners of intersections were closing. For example, the building across Gerrard from Aura now occupied by the Elephant & Castle looks like it was once a bank. Times have changed and now there's this worry that banks are multiplying everywhere. Times can change again, banks will wonder why they need so many physical locations when much of what they do can be done electronically, and people will begin mourning the loss of an element that brought some diversity to the commercial storefront mix. I'm doubtful that there is infinite demand to fill all the patios some people envision. The increasing costs of eating out (tax, tip, $15 for a Sysco burger and fries) and the complications of starting an independent business might act as a brake against developing the kind of street vibrancy we associate foremost with major European cities of decades ago.
 
From today. Most if not all of the scaffolding is down from the roof now.
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Ah the old grocery store / sobeys got leased finally ?? Looking at Marcanadian first pic
 
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