Moving arena sign of things to come

Re: Dilkens uses strong mayor powers to pitch new tax hike to fund downtown Windsor revamp (Taylor Campbell, April 24)

Your recent article regarding increasing property taxes to help revitalize Windsor's downtown reminded me of a letter I sent to the Windsor Star after the dedication of the WFCU Centre in 2008.

My prediction was that building an arena, but not in the downtown core, was a huge mistake. Instead of 6,500 patrons going to Spitfires games and other events there on a daily basis, they would be forced to travel to Windsor's east end to a lone facility without other attractions nearby.

The downtown restaurants, shops and bars would suffer. I went on to lament Windsor's sense that Detroit (Little Caesars Arena, Comerica Park, Ford Field), Toronto, London and others got it wrong and that our own city officials were smarter, putting Windsor's arena miles away from its downtown.

I wrote: “So while the mayor and council admire the plaque in the lobby, they should take comfort in the fact that they've driven a nail in the coffin of downtown. An empty downtown will be the mayor's legacy.”

In fact, my letter to the editor was followed by a cartoon from the great Star editorial cartoonist Mike Graston, depicting the WFCU as “New Beginnings” and a large sinkhole captioned “Downtown” and “Endings.”

Seems Mike and I were prophetic.

Brian Lazarus, Windsor