Needs Revitalization WHY it is starting to look like the rest of downtown.

This Bank bought the adjacent property some 20 years ago with the initial information given to the community that they did so to build a multi-storey building.

The important question is what happened in the past 20 years which caused the bank to pull out and set up shop on Central Avenue?

I know part of the answer is consolidation when the opportunity of reconfiguring a burned down branch bank occurred. That speaks in part to the lack of a population increase in PG over those 20 years.

The remainder of the answer does not lie, in my opinion, on who came to the downtown area. Those types of individuals, which several posters here look down on, were there at the time the bank was going to expand.

What has happened is that the businesses which were there left and the population of the city did not support the number of specialty stores required to survive as a viable downtown in the space vacated.

Don't blame the street people. They are still who they are and where they were 40 years ago and 30 years ago and 20 years ago. They will still be there 10 years from now and 30 years from now.

Learn to accept that and deal with improving the still viable parts of downtown and do so very aggressively from now on.

That is why my opinion is that the replacement for the Brick as well as this building will become very important. If the ball is dropped on this one we might as well consider the block between Brunswick and Quebec to be Prince George's Berlin Wall.

What downtown needs is a reason to exist. At one time this reason could have been the university. But in our wisdom we located on a hill, inconveniently located and dependent on the automobile to function. It should have been built downtown, to be the heart of a number of dependent businesses and activities. A true university town we could have become, with a lively, exciting city centre full of young people, many of whom could live and bring life to the surrounding area. Instead we are left with the most surreal and depressing downtown that must exist in our country.

It is absolutely necessary that any future expansion to the university should occur in the city’s centre. Some may believe that it is too late for that, but look at SFU, with its downtown Harbour Centre Campus, and the Schulich School of Business. UBC is also getting in the game. Both of these new additions are taking place in the core of the city. There is no reason why UNBC should not do the same. A small building could be a start, holding some regular classes. Student housing could be expanded in the surrounding area. Together with some new housing developments and downtown-located businesses, this could be the reason behind a downtown revival of sorts.

Brackencole IMO the university wouldn't work downtown.

Downtown PG has a perception problem. That perception is not university student oriented.

If a business truely wanted to be university oriented they would locate near the university rather then locate downtown and try and get the university to move.

I can think of many businesses that would do well near the university, but for some reason they are never explored because all the focus is on the downtown.

The downtown IMO is dead as long as the CN Yard is downtown, and Prince George offers no reason to have head offices located in PG. I attribute the failure to a lack of logistic and trade related industry comming together in this region.

The world turns on logistics, and the downtown wants a new Cameron Street bridge, rather then looking at the bigger picture.

I think we should be looking at the bigger picture and create a university business district short term, and long term building the foundations for a real downtown through smart planning on PG's strengths.

Ben, next week could we have a picture of the casino landscaping and maybe ask why they dress like they are located in the downtown even after they said they would change if given the most prime piece of realestate in the entire town.

Just think what it does as a greating sign to this city....

A casino that isn't even waiting to get run down, but is getting a head start with its mud parking lot and big hole in the ground.

Bang on Chadermando with that hole at the corner .... plus the back junk yard of a parking lot .... they have also not built the canopy section of the building .... nor are they managing to fill the cabaret section of the building where they had palns to have a music event featuring Canuck artists every weekend.

Business is not moving in town, whether downtown or in suburbia.

Re UNBC: Interestingly enough the rumour has been that the very building pictured above may be bought by the University to establish a small downtown presence. That would be good for downtown. Whether it would be good for UNBC, I do not know.

A downtown University when it was first built? McGill ... U of Ottawa ... U of Toronto ... Queens ... all "downtown" campuses and wonderful places to be ... I have always disliked the Ivory Tower location ....

An Industrial Reseearch has been looked at for many years but there is still no match with any business for that. They have not even taken the step to actually develop such an industrial park with roads and services. Thastis where this city is missing the boat. They simply are not ready for any light industry, or heavy industry, for that matter. The light industrial areas of this community look like left overs from a bad planning experience.

There was a comment elsewhere about waht are the signs of being business friendly ...

If Innitiatives PG would have a page similar to this one from Oregon, one of many such pages on the internet, then we would surely be business friendly ....

http://www.edforco.org/doing_business/Available_Property/businessparks.html

The Oregon website is very interesting. As a point of interest the City of Portland tore up a down town parking lot and made it into a park. The idea being was to have people us public transit or to share transportaion to reduce traffic flow and polution. Maybe the downtown wouldnt need a new Cameron Street bridge.

Chad-

You say the university won't work downtown- I agree there would be some issues. But any new action on the downtown would have a rough start. This is not something that we can conveniently sweep away with some new trees and a few repaired panes of glass. However, this would be one of those "vision" things that could help turn the place around. We can't expect the place to fix itself on its own, and a university downtown would be a good first step.

Correct me if I am wrong, but you're preference is for downtown to be located around the existing university. Same concept, isn't it?

I'm suprprised Opionion250 is unaware of the worst kept secret regarding this building - it's planned donation to UNBC.

Less pot-shots and more news/trends/developments would be nice.

Hopefully Opionion250 will be at the major donation announcement on Friday, October 21 at 9:00 am at this very building.

Shawn Petriw

Great news! Maybe a good platform for this next mayor of ours could be to build on that, propose some new student housing down there as well. Maybe create a direct transit line between the two campuses, and look at new ways to expand the downtown campus if it proves to be a success.

It is really too bad that our leaders never advocated for the downtown university to begin with, and really shows the lack of leadership this town has been suffering from. Lets just hope our new ones get it.

Opatcho ...

Portland is my most favourite US city ... reminds me more of a Canuck city ...

And Portland has some nice public canopies over the downtown shopping street sidewalks ....

and they have lots of nice green space downtown .... plus skywalks ....

Brackencole, no it is not the same concept.

IMO if UNBC had been located downtown it would be a failure, and pushed aside by the Kamloops and Kelowna universities.

70% of the UNBC population is from out of town. They come here for the lifestyle. They did not come here to go to school next to the Generator or the Croft. Most see the safety of the school and the neighborhood it's in as a major factor for going to UNBC, along with the cost of living here in PG.

Even if that building on 3'rd was given to UNBC I still can not vision to many scenarios where it would be foreseeable for UNBC to locate some sort of function in that building. I don’t think UNBC is big enough in the foreseeable future to fragment its services and overhead across town.

It seams the downtown is, as you can admit, a long-term project. We need to come to term with the fact that it requires head office workers, government workers, and infrastructure needs, to make no mention of its lack of proximity to any natural landscapes that Prince George is known for. These things require a Prince George friendly provincial and federal government, strategic vision, and a regional focus greater then simple service providers of the forest industry.

A city-wide development focus when it comes to commercial service industries however is the business friendly thing to do and it would better serve the people of Prince George and initiate the growth of Prince George.

A commercial service center around UNBC as well as more student housing near the school would serve the client (out of town students) with the services in demand, as well as provide a safe shopping atmosphere in an area of Prince George that can showcase the real Prince George identity.

In my view of PG the downtown is a long-term project that requires at least 150,000 residents to support it. To get there we require revitalized commercial service centers in the Hart and at UNBC. I think another area of commercial service growth will be the Pine Valley golf course. For industrial the obvious choice is to develop the area past the pulp mills as part of a comprehensive plan to facilitate a dangerous good route.

The downtown sort term focus is an anchor that needs to be lifted from the neck of Prince George development IMO.

Time Will Tell

should have read

"Even if that building on 3'rd was given to UNBC I still can not vision to many scenarios where it would be economical for UNBC to locate some sort of function in that building.

All this fear of revitalizing the downtown area. What are the merchants doing and were is the overall plan for the area? The retail trades have completely prostituted themselves and now want the tax payer to bail them out. It is unbelievable the junk that some of them try to sell us at ridiculous prices. I was just reading this morning where Arnold Palmer rakes in $20 million in endorsements. Most of the products are made off shore. So whos making the money. When will these merchants wake up and smell the coffee.
I remember the Bay. You drove into their parkade walked to an elevator and did your shopping. This was the model for many large department stores. Their products were good and you paid the price.
Today we have big malls with huge parking lots filled with gas guzzlers not a tree or shrub in sight and you walk a km from your car to buy junk goods.
We are being led down the garden path by marketing strategy. Wouldnt it make more sense to get rid of the parking lots us a parkade under the mall that have multi levels. The structures could be more imaginative and we wouldnt have to stare at the shinny gas guzzlers parked around the shopping area

Chad-
You seem to be lack a certain imagination- The university would have had a huge transformative effect on downtown and its surrounding area. It would have complettely changed the neighbourhood. Not overnight, but in the long-term. It need not have been built by the croft, but perhaps more uptown at Parkwood mall before they refurbished it. There would have been many options.

Many people I have talked to find life on the hill completely depressing with few activities. You can't tell me that this is a selling point for everyone. Many people go to university to enjoy the community of students. As far as I know, such a community is pretty tenuous at UNBC. If it were downtown, you would have students hanging around on the streets, in the neighbourhood, in pubs, and things would be completely different as they are today. My advice to you- go to other cities, especially in Europe, and check out how and where they build universities. They are often right in downtown. You would also notice how much more vibrant, exciting and "revitalized" the downtowns were as a result of this.