The endless search for downtown success
Nothing is certain, it is said, but death and taxes.
I’d add a third: downtown revitalization efforts in St. Catharines.
Granted, I only have personal recall of a relatively short sample period of 37 years.
Still, it didn’t take me long to jump on the woe-is-the-downtown bandwagon.
In the summer of 1980, about six months after my arrival here, I wrote a story lamenting how dead St. Paul Street was at night. What followed was a compilation of thoughts on how the core might be animated. Sound familiar? The funny thing is, downtown at that time had a couple of strong elements the city can only dream about now. It also seemed on the cusp of increased glory.
Retail was still a strong, albeit somewhat fading presence. Coy Brothers, Levitt’s Fine China, Potter and Shaw, National Bakery, the Sound Shoppe, Patrick’s Sports, National Bakery, Raham’s, Beattie’s, Jack Nash, Duthler Textiles, Stokes Seeds, the Photo Shop and Kresge’s to name a few were alive and well. Sidewalk sales were common.
Egads, there was even a grocery store at One St. Paul.
There was also a healthy number of decently paid office workers in the core. Indeed, the sidewalks were well-trodden during daylight hours.
And it looked like that workforce was going to be boosted big-time.
Three major office towers — One St. Paul, Phase Two; the CIBC building at Queen and King; and the Taro-Misener building at James and Church — as well as the Ontario Street parking garage were being built in 1980.
This feverish, private-sector construction activity was following on the heels of the development of Corbloc and the first phase of One St. Paul. It was also announced around this time that St. Catharines would finally be getting a large new courthouse smack in the middle of downtown. Plus, Highway 406 was being extended to the QEW, a project that included building bridges that improved traffic flow in and out of downtown.
As a newcomer to St. Catharines, I thought I had landed in one happenin’ kinda place.
In fact, one could make the argument that there was more wellfounded optimism for the future health of downtown St. Catharines in the early 1980s then than there is now.
A local task force was formed to entice Toronto-area businesses to relocate their offices to Niagara’s biggest city to take advantage of lower prices and the area’s more relaxed lifestyle.
That probably also sounds familiar, right?
Anyway, things didn’t quite work out as planned.
Those new buildings essentially created a glut of office space downtown and the retail sector continued its downward spiral.
Various efforts were made and plenty of studies undertaken throughout the next couple of decades to address the perceived moribund state of the core.
The city did some extensive streetscaping, built a Rockpile, improved Market Square, waived all parking requirements for downtown housing, built a new bus terminal and received the political gift of the MTO headquarters. The results were mixed. And now here we are today with the latest optimistic outlook for downtown’s future, a cheerfulness attributable to a new performing arts centre, Brock University school, 5,500-seat spectator facility, a groovy new, soon-to-beopened Burgoyne Bridge and the spinoff businesses these public investments have spawned.
The downtown looks better than it has in decades, and it’s certainly no longer dead at night.
But what bedeviled downtown boosters 35 years ago holds true today as well — bringing middleclass or upper-end housing to the core.
The days of downtown being a shopping magnet for people throughout the city are long gone. For retail to work and flourish, the core has to develop into a pedestrian-friendly, residential neighbourhood. It just can’t be students, either.
This is hardly revelatory. But finding the market for such housing has proven to be difficult.
Time is on the downtown’s side, though.
Urban sprawl — at least for new housing developments — is dead in St. Catharines. Provincial, regional and city planning policies all encourage residential intensification. Amenities abound in the core.
Perhaps downtown revitalization efforts will no longer be as certain as death and taxes.
For the moment, let’s downgrade the need for future studies.