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.
