GOOD we need the room for some more Bars, Needle exchanges,Fop houses.

Let us look at the potential positive side of this story.

While it is better than having an empty building boarded up, the Brick is really not the type of store to draw much traffic to downtown. Whether we can improve the project this time around remains to be seen. Let us see how good Innitiatives PG, the BIA, the City Council and Backlin are on this one.

When I first came to town this was the busiest part of third avenue on weekends with the Bay, the Northern and other stores in the area.

When it was empty the last time, I did this quick sketch to explain to people what I thought was needed
http://putfile.com/pic.php?pic=10/28212444884.jpg&s=x10

- a conversion to a two storey multi store, mini shopping centre, opened up to allow some light into the building and draw people into it.

It is in an ideal location, it has a parkade immediately behind it. If such a project will not work, then nothing much else will.

This is what a similar project on Commercial Drive in Vancouver looks like:
http://putfile.com/pic.php?pic=10/28213012188.jpg&s=x10
http://putfile.com/pic.php?pic=10/28213010989.jpg&s=x10

Tenants?? - specialty food products such as bakery, green grocer (we have none in this town)cheese, meat, deli along with small food court; restaurant open at night; small magazine, newspaper kiosk; specialty gift stores; even small service offices, especially those promoting PG, might work to fill spaces till more retail might be able to survive.

Once a place like that survives, we cna begin to work on the rest of 3rd avenue to make it look more like Commercial Drive .... notice the awnings which those who "refurbished" third avenue envisaged many store owners would rush out to buy ...
http://putfile.com/pic.php?pic=10/28213005823.jpg&s=x10

Great idea owl, but that big IF the potential businesses survive!!!!
And IF they don't we probably have a number of fairly broke individuals who had the dream of opening their own business, and it inevitably became a "gone broke" nightmare.
Not fun!!!!
I, personally, would never consider venturing into any part of the downtown area of this city.
I say, like DON, leave it to the has beens and never will be's. I am sure Mr. Krause can come up with some bleeding heart solutions for the vacated buildings.
Some say "Better late than never."
I say "Better never than hanging in until it is too late."
Anyhow-it most certainly will be interesting to see what Initiatives P G comes up with-but surely Offet will come up with something to lure those tourists off First Avenue??????
That is if any of them make it there????
After all there has to be a million dollar investment at that First Avenue location-just waiting for some lost tourists.
Gotta look for the good times!!!!
Or have they come and gone????

Kris .... I am sure you are right ....

I suspect it is on sale days and, as you say, when other stores are not open .....

As with traffic studies, one would have to survey such traffic at different times, however.

I am sure if the Brick was doing well at that location they would be fools to move.

Look at Canadian Tire and see what is happening there. They moved from an undersized store that was doing a great business to an oversized store which is lucky to have as many cars parked in front of it as they had in the old location. They are even saving money by turning all outside lights off at night.

The Brick is the largest single retail space in the CBD. Filled with a mix of small stores, etc., it should generate many times the traffic you describe. Successful downtowns do not have furniture stores, other than small high end ones in some cases. Such stores have a very low cost of merchandise per square foot of retail space. Compare it to the camera store across the street, for instance.

As I said, it is better to have the Brick there than nothing. But we should be attempting to get a much higher traffic use, even if it is not going to be high end merchandise to begin with.

Also, one must not forget about Liquidators upstairs. I suspect that the total traffc over the period of a month is actually the same or greater than to the Brick.

Gypsy ... there is nothing unique about PG whatsoever. Virtually ever single town in North America goes through exactly what PG is and has been going through. The main difference between PG and the other cities is that PG has simply not grown in population over the past 20 years. When it is too expensive to do business elsewhere in town and the downtown retail space value has diminished, the state of equilibrium which favours the outskirts of the City will have started to swing around and will cause some to open up a business downtown to compete against those which are paying $25+ per square foot by paying $10 or less per square foot.

The primary reason why that has not happened naturally yet in PG is because since 1981 we have had a stagnant population. The core has emptied and moved to suburbia because that is the way retail is being done in North America and we do not have the population base to support sufficient specialty shops in the core which typically fill the void in a growing city..

So, we either continue to let it fester until the city starts to grow again, if ever, or promote that kind of activity without the population growth by providing additional incentives to move to the core, and limiting the development of retail and offices in suburbia. The City fathers have simply not seen fit to do either in a meaningful way in the past 15 to 20 years.

For instance, not too many took note of the fact that SD57 moved from downtown to Ferry Avenue. Nor do too many people take note of the fact that offices have moved into a closed suburban school. There is leakage like that all over the place.

One of the initial ones was Parkhill, which was not supposed to be retail at all.

I guess what I am trying to say with the Brick location is that it is at the "right" end of 3rd, it has the parking, and it needs to have an activity which generates a significant number of multiple users in order for it to be a true asset to downtown.

Forgive me for being somewhat off topic here, but has anyone seen any concept drawings of this planned community thing? The one proposed by the San Fran based business group? This and perhaps others like it might be what saves (redefines) the downtown.