CITY HALL SHOWCASE
Civic square’s ‘wow factor’
Looking outside from the new city hall council chambers and atrium, all that’s visible today is construction fencing and the old city hall, so close that it robs the glass-walled interior of natural light.
“But when the building comes down and the hoarding comes down, you’ll have this view all the way to the waterfront,” city planner Thom Hunt said, gesturing northward toward roughly eight acres of chopped-up public land slated for redevelopment into a civic square and esplanade. This outdoor project is regarded as Phase 3 of the new city hall. The first phase was the $32-million construction of the city hall, which opened for business last month — on time and on budget. The second phase is demolition of the old one, a challenging and time-consuming process because of all the asbestos containment and removal needed before the structure gets knocked down.
Project manager Wadah Al Yassiri has been carefully controlling costs because he’s hoping to have some money left over from the $43-million total project to roll into Phase 3. The civic square, he said, will provide the “wow factor” for the entire project.
“This is about city hall being a gathering point, being a focal point of the downtown,” Mayor Drew Dilkens said of the civic square/esplanade project. He said that the council of the day decided to build the new city hall as a modern, functional office space instead of a majestic structure costing twice as much. The idea was, “if you’re going to spend additional money, let’s put it in a place the whole community can enjoy,” he said. “This isn’t just for people who live downtown, it’s for the entire community.”
A big part of the plan is moving the cramped and costly-to-operate Charles Clark Square skating rink across University Avenue to the civic plaza property, enlarging it and possibly making it a year-round attraction with a water feature in the summer. The mayor has also said he would eventually like to see the Bright Lights Windsor holiday light display, which premiered last year in Jackson Park, move to the civic square/esplanade. Overall, said Hunt, the idea is to create a unified, timeless design for the properties — the five acres of city hall property, including the new city hall and the adjacent 400 building, as well as Sen. David A. Croll Park and the Cenotaph, plus the 90-foot-wide swath of public land from University Avenue all the way to Riverside Drive. The design is to be integrated with adjacent properties like All Saints Church, the Ontario Tourism building and the new University of Windsor buildings on the other side of Goyeau Street.
Hunt hopes to start consulting with the public about the space while the old city hall is being demolished, so master plans can be developed and approved, and construction can begin soon after the site is cleared and filled.
“It’s the place of civic government and it’s a place where most local decisions are made that affect people’s lives. It’s a place where people from the community come to celebrate, for rallies,” Hunt said. He said big crowds could gather to watch sporting events, much as citizens in Winnipeg and Washington congregated to watch the Stanley Cup final.
“Those are the kinds of public spaces people want to go to,” he said. “Our challenge is to make this space a welcoming place of public gathering.”
While the old city hall building is coming down, the plan is to retain at least the bottom part of the front concave concrete wall, as a remembrance of the 1950s structure. Officials would also like to retain many of the big trees and the set of four fountains built to recognize the land’s uses going back 268 years, as French farmland, the 1840s Windsor Barracks, the old Central School and as a city hall starting in 1904. To the east, the roadway between the 400 building and the new city hall is being closed and turned into a pedestrian area, with a covered walkway between the two buildings, “to give it a campus-like feel.”
From University Avenue looking north toward the river, Charles Clark Square and its snack bar are a concrete mass when the ice is out. What to do with the space once the skating rink is moved to the civic square is open for suggestions, as is the block immediately to the north. That patch of grass between the provincial courthouse and Caesars Windsor’s convention building is temporary landscaping that has remained for years.
The next section, between Pitt Street and Riverside Drive, features landscaping with undulating grass symbolizing the river, and an impressive Underground Railroad sculpture that doesn’t get the attention it deserves because it’s tucked away.
The most daunting challenge of the redesign is getting across busy Riverside Drive — either going over with a bridge or under with a tunnel, both of which would be costly.
The mayor said the entire project will have to be done in phases. The old city hall should be demolished by the end of the year. “And then we’ll be able to start figuring out how to fund and how to move the project forward,” he said. “It’s not an inexpensive proposition, but it’s one worth doing, for sure.”
The idea of creating a vista from city hall, right down to the river, has been a goal of the city’s for about 70 years, Dilkens said. “I think the public will love it when it’s eventually done.”
Those are the kinds of public spaces people want to go to. Our challenge is to make this space a welcoming place.