Monday evening promises to be another long haul at Thunder
Bay City Council given the conjunction of issues that will be arriving. In many respects, the issues of revamping the
library system and redeveloping Victoria Avenue will help define the city for
the remainder of the 21st century.
A common theme to all these issues is downtown development, always a
complicated issue in a city which now has three downtowns as well as several
smaller neighborhood cores. And to
further spice things up, Thunder Bay has been left off the list
of Ontario cities with strong mayor powers.
However, this is not a slight given that Thunder Bay has company in
southern Ontario with other
big city places like Newmarket and Chatham-Kent which have been left off
because they also have not yet submitted a housing pledge to the provincial
government. The strong mayor powers are
generally designed to help fast track housing development.
However, the issues of downtown development and housing can be
linked and the current issues facing Thunder Bay City Council with respect to a
new library master plan, the demolition of Victoriaville and housing
development could be linked facilitating a case for the allocation of strong
mayor powers to Thunder Bay – assuming that is a direction we want to
go. Given the often insular and informal backroom
nature of decision making in Thunder Bay, it is not surprising that informal
polling suggests that the majority of people in Thunder Bay are not
overwhelming keen on having the mayor’s office gain additional powers.
The issues in summary are as follows. First, a
$17.5-million preferred design for the demolition of the Victoriaville Mall, reconstruction of Victoria Avenue, and addition of new public spaces will
be considered by City Council as part of yet another plan to revitalize the
city’s south core. The demise of the
core has been ascribed to the decision to close up the traditional main
thoroughfare – Victoria Avenue – with the building of the mall in the early
1980s. This was done as part of another plan
to revitalize the core in a manner akin to downtown north (Port Arthur) which
had a new mall built there known as Keskus.
Keskus is now gone and the north core the home of a casino, new
restaurants, a waterfront park and hotel, cruise ship dock and condo
development, and is now considered the entertainment district. The hope is now that opening up the south
core to traffic will also spur revitalization.
The estimated cost is $17.5 million but realistically we can probably
multiply that by two by the time everything is done given the history of public
sector projects in Thunder Bay.
Second is the new
master plan set of proposals for the future of the Thunder Bay library
system. The current system has four
branches with two on the north side and two on the south side reflecting the
traditional distribution of neighborhoods and population. However, over time the two downtowns – where the
two largest branches are - have seen fewer residents and the gist of the
library system renewal plans are a new central location in the intercity
area. Three scenarios have been
proposed: Plan 1) Retention of M.J.L. Black and County Park, retention of the
two downtown locations (albeit downsized) and a new central branch located in
the former Lowe’s store at Intercity Shopping Center. Naturally, this is
modified status quo plus one making it politically the most palatable
as well as the most expensive at $9.1 million. (However, see earlier caveat
about public sector projects costs in Thunder Bay).
Plan 2) A central branch again at the former Lowe’s store
with retention of County Park, Waverly, and M.J.L. Black with the closure of Brodie. Cost of this option, $8.3 million. What is interesting here is the juxtaposition
of revitalizing the south core by opening up Victoria Avenue while removing a
key amenity such as a major public library. Given that many homeless people have been
using both the enclosed Victoriaville center as well as the Brodie library as
supports, their joint removal would create a new set of issues for Thunder
Bay. In addition, the Brodie Branch does have some
historic significance as both a landmark and a Carnegie Library and
naturally there would need to be a plan to deal with that aspect. On the other
hand, there would still be four branches and politically this might sell
depending on how many friends the Brodie location has.
Plan 3) A central branch located at the former Lowe's at
Intercity Mall. There would be two neighborhood locations at Waverley and MJL Black. Brodie and County Park locations would close. Cost would be $7.7
million. In strict cost terms, this
makes the most sense but the issues with respect to Brodie raised under plan 2
holds and to that would be added neighborhood interests for the County Park branch. In the end, this option would generate the
most opposition though going to a more stream-lined system of only three
branches might be seen by some as an advantage.
What is common in all three of these plans is of course a
new central location that is not a new build but a repurposing of existing mall
space. This has pluses and minuses. The
biggest minus is that no one really lives in the intercity area and in a car
dependent city like Thunder Bay, despite the official ceremonial attachment to environmental
causes and bike lanes, it means yet another reason to drive to the area. This is an area which incidentally still has
freight trains merrily winding their way thru at the most inopportune
times. The biggest plus is also that it
makes use of existing mall space and transforming underused mall space into
other uses is a good thing.
It would be more helpful if along with putting amenities in intercity, there was more of a plan to put density
housing there too. In the end revitalization of core areas helps
to have people living in and around them because downtowns traditionally have a
lot of amenities within walking distance.
In the case of the former core areas of Port Arthur and Fort William,
many of those amenities have over the years migrated to the inter-city
area. The inter-city area has become the
de-facto main downtown of Thunder Bay and yet there has been no follow through
to also put in more apartment or condo buildings. Intercity mall is a case in point, with
its retail and a new library, a residential development at its north end would create
much needed housing and help create the urban density that Thunder Bay claims
is one of its goals. Indeed, density
housing projects – six to eight story apartment and condo buildings – in both former
downtown cores as well the intercity area – would be a way of Thunder Bay
helping meet provincial government housing targets. This could indeed be the type of plan that
would allow the provincial government to grant the city strong mayor powers,
but it requires a vision and to date there is no vision.
While Thunder Bay has not been growing robustly in terms of
population, it appears that there is a demand for housing given the recent move
to increase density in existing residential neighborhoods via basement
apartments and mother-in-law suites, while paradoxically also expanding
standard suburban residential developments.
One suspects if well-designed quality and affordable apartment and condo
housing was more available in any of Thunder Bay’s three “downtowns” one
suspects there would be a definite demand for it. Again, building it requires a vision as well
as the will and the ability to implement the vision. It
also requires a more favorable municipal tax rate for multi-unit residential. To date, all this
has been lacking and we are left with incremental changes that do not always
work together to build integrated and thoughtful end results.
