Save dwindling downtown retail space

(September 16) - The library has had a very happy 125th birthday. Celebrations began with an open house in the main branch last February and wrapped up on Saturday with a family barbecue at the West End Branch. It was a good year to serve on its Board.

The party might be over, but the challenges haven’t gone away. We still need to settle on locations for a new east side branch and the new downtown main branch. Decisions on both will be made soon. If you can pull yourselves away from the daily thrills of the election campaign, there is still time to make your views known.

People living to the east of Victoria should be making the most noise. They bought new homes in new subdivisions on the promise that they wouldn’t wait too long for somewhere to shop. Many have been there for more than five years and the Big Bear store at the corner of Starwood and Grange is still the only game in town. For serious groceries they have to drive to either Food Basics or Zehrs on Eramosa. There are other good specialty shops such as Angelino’s or Boxed Meat, but nothing closer to where they live.

The east end library branch could well be the catalyst for further development. The sooner it can be located and built, the better it will be for the thousands of people living there. When the supermarket chains see them feeding their minds, they will quickly move in to help them feed their stomachs.

The downtown branch could still be the source of controversy. The location for it is fixed. It will go in the Baker St. parking lot and will be a major piece of the downtown redevelopment puzzle. What we don’t know yet is exactly where it will be placed. A consultant is recommending three different scenarios, with one as the obvious favourite. It would see the demolition of all the buildings between the old post office building laneway and Ragin’ Caygeon’s cowboy saloon. Part of this would make room for a new street running from Wyndham to Baker St. The rest would make room for the new library building.

A healthy downtown should have a good mix of retail, residential and institutional uses. If the consultant’s plan is adopted, we will lose some retail and residential from the main downtown street and be left with an institutional mall. On the one side of Wyndham, we’ll have the Community Health Centre, the library and Wellington County housing services in a line broken only by the saloon. On the other side the predominant uses are the government offices in the old Wellington Hotel and the County’s Ontario Works offices.

That we would have trouble keeping stores downtown was predicted in the debates about big box shopping nodes. We shouldn’t make it worse by kicking over the buildings we still have. We’d be demolishing apartments to make way for city centre condos. Remember the heritage fuss that arose over the old shoe repair shop on Alice St. The owner was prevented from tearing it down to build a garage. Take that fuss, multiply it by a downtown block and imagine the result.

People in Guelph are understandably nervous about losing old buildings. There’s not many left. They should be taken down only as a matter of last resort. That is not the case here. There are alternative choices that make a lot more sense. According to its web site, Ragin’ Caygeon’s is only open four hours a week. It sits on a site that used to house the Odeon Cinema. Several uses before that it was the Royal Opera House.

Instead of demolishing buildings, why not acquire this property and renovate it for a library that extends to the rear into the parking lot? It could be a variation of the concept that would have been used if the city had bought the post office. The cultural heritage of this spot will be preserved and continued. Downtown retail and residential uses will be preserved and continued. The new library will attract new retail tenants. It is a win-win solution.

You don’t revitalize the downtown by removing an important part of it.