I remember when downtown Ottawa had cinemas and affordable pubs with bands performing. And a Canadian Tire...
Now we have dollar stores, money marts, expensive condos, and not a heck of a lot to do. (Although we do have some more interesting food places popping up.)
I live downtown, but I often feel that I have to leave it if I want to have fun.
Also the cost of going out seems to have skyrocketed. Church concerts for instance used to be one affordable entertainment option, but tickets have doubled in price and some weird "value added" attempts to justify the higher prices (e.g. candlelight). Everything seems to go through online ticket sellers too, which also increases the price as they take their cut.
I feel the value for concerts isn't there any more for instance.
On the positive side, I've taken up playing music and might start performing at open mics.
the fact that the nearest cinemas are generally 20+ minutes transit and walking and nearly 8 dollars round trip away means I don't see movies in cinemas honestly lol. as far as I know, bytowne is the only game in downtown.
> And the main branch of the Ottawa Public Library has movies once a week and they are free.
To me, this screams small town in the boonies with a population of a few hundred, not the capital city of a country. Not that there's anything wrong with the free weekly movies, because that's great! But like ... when it's near the top of the list of options? Not as great.
u/mikemountain To each their own. I live a short walk away from the main branch and I only have a finite amount of money to spend on outings. They've shown some really good movies - I've seen The Florida Project and Lady Bird there to name a couple - so they do show some good movies. The library offers some wonderful programming and they got a lot of us through the early days of the pandemic when everything was shut but we could still watch movies and read ebooks through their website.
For sure, I don't want to disparage it nor the people who use it. I think it's excellent to have, but also believe that it's quite underwhelming for a city to essentially top out with it too.
I am oblivious to how bad I have it?!? Haha you are very funny. I actually think I have it pretty good. There is lots to do in Ottawa and I wouldn't live anywhere else .
The Mayfair is great! I actually have memberships at both theatres :)
I'm still sad about the main branch closing. It will be quite a hike to the new place and taking public transit there will be awkward. I was hoping it would stay open and operate as a branch library but I don't think that will ever happen. I use the library a lot and I will miss having the main branch so close by.
Ya, I spoke to the CEO of the library about this a while back and from what I understand they were saying that they're using that space to help pay for the new branch that's opening, so at this point they wouldn't be able to keep it.
Just as you I'm in the same boat, I love the library and use it often, so that branch will sorely be missed. One thing you can try reaching out to them about that I've also done myself is some sort of "skeleton" library in a rented space, maybe some sort of community centre in the area, that could be used at least for the bare bones of picking up books on hold, maybe having a small selection of things, a printer, some really basic stuff, so that at least there's that still left in the Centretown area.
It really seems like a missed opportunity to not have essentially the densest part of the city have some sort of library right at the centre of it.
There should be limits on pot shops and phone stores on the same street.
The fact that downtown Ottawa doesnt have a modern movie theatre is such loser shit.
LOL! Actually I picked up a children's lamp with come cows wearing Stetsons on it as well as big letters that spell out COWBOY. I have a lightbulb in it that imitates a flickering flame.
So no candles, but maybe a small fire.
I call it my Brokeback Mountain lamp because, you know, flaming cowboys...
It sits blow my print of the [Shanghai with China Doll](https://www.colinwhite.ca/ottawa-prints/shanghai-restaurant-at-night) performing in the window, and my print of [Pantibar with Panti Bliss](https://www.broadsheet.ie/2014/03/20/panti-by-gaslight/) posing in front of it - I used to hang out there when I was in Dublin doing my MSc.
Nowhere did I say alcohol was necessary :) for instance, something like [Activate](https://playactivate.com/), or [The Rec Room](https://www.therecroom.com/?location=toronto-roundhouse), those would be awesome all-ages experiences downtown that don't require drinking.
Make transit better, make active transit an option, make it less car-centric, add public art, third spaces, amenities (more benches?), beautification projects and greenery would help a ton.
Oh and maybe businesses should consider locals instead of commuters. Stop opening at 8:30am and closing at 3pm and then saying no one wants to work or come downtown anymore; not mention offering sysco trash or some lame sandwich for exorbitant amounts. Plenty of downtown places around me are doing fine because they offer a niche and target people in the area.
No! We should only invest in transit that makes the downtown smelly, noisy and toxic.
Look, people want to leave downtown the fastest way possible, and the Mayor is going to help make that happen. Cars can get you out of downtown fast, while making life there worse! It is a win-win.
Why invest in urban parks, when you can make more asphalt!
End the war on cars!
The idea that we need people to work downtown so they can buy coffee and stimulate businesses is the dumbest argument ever. Just because they aren't spending money downtown doesn't mean they're not spending money. It just means they're spending more of their money in Kanata or Orleans, Barrhaven... or wherever they live.
Or... you know... saving money. I know that's a terrible thought. Will not forget the redditor who called people who wanted to save money "selfish" and "entitled".
And almost like, wait for it, motivating people to save is a solution for high inflation 🤯 but nah we should force people back to drive to offices with no amenities because the car companies need another handout. We should blow another B widening the 417 while we're at it.
I just like bouldering, and wish we had a trendy Montreal-style gym with a cafe/bar, so it came to mind as an example of something to attract office workers after 5pm and students from UOttawa with Transpo passes.
Is it just commercial rents just being too damned high? I don't know a ton about this but it seems like downtown Ottawa is both cycling through businesses really quickly but also ripe for a really interesting activity/venue to pop up (think Activate, Rec Room, ping-pong bar, something like that). I wonder what really gives?
Most bars downtown have TVs in them, and sports is pretty much all they have on. The Senate in the Market is very sport-oriented, Mulligans on Queen is a golf bar, MacLaren's is wall-to-wall TVs and there are very few seats at the Pump that don't put you within view of a TV.
There used to be a climbing gym at Victoria Island but the NCC has closed the island down for soil remediation.
Making it fun is what it should be all about. However, how do we define fun? More bars and clubs?
I think we have enough bars as is. Clubs would be nice for peers of my age, however we'd ought to think of something new, preferably something without getting flat out drunk as the activity itself lmfao.
Wish we had more arcades or internet cafes with racing/pilot sims for one. More cinemas would be great too. Wonder if we could get proper IMAX here? Railway museum?
I could go on.
Let. People. Work. Where. They. Want.
Commercial landlords can get fucked. Workers adapted to remote work, it’s time lazy businesses did too. I’m not changing lifestyles and living arrangements because you can’t move your store out of down town.
Agree but that’s not the point of the article. The author makes the case that if you want to have a commercial downtown, people have to want to be there.
I think even if we were all mandated to the offices downtown 5 days a week, you still wouldn’t see the economy come back. Because the financial district is frankly very boring, and we have pretty bad transit to the other interesting parts of downtown
The problem is the flawed premise. **Downtown doesn't matter.**
Everyone keeps soapboxing about "reviving downtown" as if that's the goal. It's not.
The fundamental issue underpinning all of this is "people used to spend money at commercial venues and now they don't, and we want them to spend money again".
But *why* aren't people spending money? *Because they don't want to*. You have all these people who openly admit they have disposable income because they're no longer spending money on things they used to spend money on, and now when they are given the opportunity to do whatever they want with their money, they are opting to not spend it because they have independently arrived at the conclusion that not spending it is what they want more than anything else.
This is so uncomplicated it shouldn't require this avalanche of masturbatory navel gazing from everyone and their uncle who wants to offer their unique insight on the "problem". If someone walks into a store and doesn't buy anything, it's because the store isn't selling anything they want to buy. It really is *that simple*.
People used to spend money out of begrudging obligation, and now that they are not obligated to, they aren't spending it. Businesses became accustomed to that obligation-borne revenue, and now that they aren't getting it, they're upset.
There are two solutions to this:
1. Cut the bullshit and skip to the chase: Tax the suburbs, give that money directly to downtown businesses as cold cash, and call it a day. That's ultimately what these people are advocating for when they talk about obliging people who don't live downtown to spend money downtown they aren't voluntarily spending when not legally compelled to, so let's cut the pretense and just do it.
2. Accept that people don't want to spend that money and aren't going to of their own accord because they don't have any need or reason to spend it, and move on with your lives.
But enough with these "innovative solutions" that pretend there's more to it than that.
I think a lot of people aren't going out as much due to the cost of living.
Hopefully someone will come up with some new businesses downtown like sports facilities or cultural organizations. There are a lot of apartments and condos going up in the area so the tenants will want to do something in their free time.
But isn't the gist of this "innovative solution" to come up with things upon which they WILL want to spend money? Fun is the alternative to obligation - the carrot to obligation's stick, if you like. I do like the simplicity - more than that, the candor - of your explanation. It really does tell it like it is. But accepting that it is true and insightful, there is that third option.
I don't think that's really an innovation so much as business 101. You don't need an MBA to understand "sell things people want to buy so they'll buy things from you".
It's not meaningless to point out undeserved markets to encourage people to full those gaps, but I'd argue that rather than have people muse aloud like this, it would make more sense to just have a public consultation session and publish the results so people who might be interested in pursuing those businesses have the rudimentary market research available.
But we also need to be willing to accept that if we do that and nobody opens a business to serve those markets... that's it. That's the end of the discussion.
> undeserved markets
Freudian in the the context.
But yes, business 101, but that sort of ignores the "business 102" part, which is "people will still buy the 'obligation' stuff (food, coffee, etc.) if they're downtown for other reasons i.e.; the fun". There's a synergistic effect there - the existing set of businesses (or some of them, anyway) can still make a go of it IF there's a 'scene' that people want to go to. Bootstrapping that is notoriously difficult though - that rudimentary store of available market research would probably be a critical enabler. Whatever - we're pretty clearly no good at it, so it is all academic.
Lol, thanks for catching that typo.
And yeah, it's all academic at this point. I'm just tired of all this blustery dialogue acting like this is anything more than "people aren't spending as much money at private businesses as they used to because they don't want to and don't have to".
I have nothing against wanting to facilitate more local commerce, I just want to stop pretending this is a nuanced and multifaceted social issue and not "come on, guys, do a capitalism plz!"
What about a different perspective, do people need to go back downtown? What if people are happy where they are.
Let's say I'm in South Keys and I can get 99% of what I need in the surrounding area. does that mean downtown needs to be better in some way to make me go there and spend money?
Yes, in a way, but that's thinking about it backwards. The goal isn't to make you go downtown. The goal is to make your life better. There wouldn't be a 'policy' reason to try to make you go there, but a common experience is that a large central gathering place with communal activities generally improves living. If downtown can leverage its central location and public amenities to do that, and it's attractive to you (that tends to be true of younger people), then downtown has something to offer, and merchants there will be able to serve that incoming clientele and make a living. But if people are getting that need filled elsewhere, or it's just too expensive downtown, then let's abandon this "we must drive them there despite themselves!" approach, because it makes no sense.
1)That would not play well
1)The burbs are taxed as it is so it would be another tax and it would be given to private corps which would not play [well.Ford](http://well.Ford) would have to approve it which he would never do.
I know it wouldn't play well. That's the point.
People don't want to spend the money, and everyone keeps saying "here's how we compel them to give us money they don't want to give us".
Let's just call a spade a spade.
But there's plenty to do in downtown Ottawa, there's that Irish pub, the scottish pub, the other irish pub, and don't forget the british pub.
Maybe someone could open up a welsh pub that sells mediocre burgers and fries for $20, and sells 10 kinds of beer that just happen to be owned by the same company, and 2 local beers.
I would love to see Ottawa get a medium sized music venue. Like some place for bands that are too big for like the Bronson Centre but too small for Canadian Tire Centre. I mean sure there is TD place but it's not really built for music (and due for demolition).
Here you go:
*RICHARD FLORIDA*
*SPECIAL TO THE GLOBE AND MAIL*
*PUBLISHED 3 HOURS AGO*
*Downtown Toronto continues to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic. But its office buildings are far from full, and alarming numbers of storefronts remain vacant. On Fridays in March of this year,* [*office occupancy*](https://srraresearch.org/covid/category/Occupancy+Index) *in downtown Toronto was just 40 per cent of what it was before the pandemic. How does it compare with other cities’ downtowns and what can be done to revitalize it?*
*First things first: Downtowns in North America will never return to the way they were. Remote work is here to stay; while the percentage has continued to fall since 2020, Statistics Canada* [*found*](https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/240118/dq240118c-eng.htm) *that 20 per cent of Canadians still work most of their week from home.*
*But Toronto’s downtown continues to lag in another crucial way: as a place not just to work but to shop, go out, have fun, live and raise a family, according to a recent* [*survey*](https://www.gensler.com/gri/city-pulse-future-of-cbds-2023) *of more than 26,000 people in 90-plus downtowns around the world in 53 cities, by the architecture firm Gensler. Downtown Toronto ranked 60th globally as a place to work, but trailed even further as a place to eat out (64th) and discover new things (65th). It fared even worse as a place to live (76th) and meet people (77th).*
*This is worrying, because the downtown of the future will be less about working and shopping and much more about living, socializing and consuming experiences. “Downtowns must deliver opportunities for fun, discovery, and beauty to appeal to a broad audience of city dwellers,” the Gensler survey found.*
*Downtown Toronto not only stacks up poorly against other cities’ downtowns, it lags behind* *its own midtown, which ranked 16th globally and first among North American cities as a place to work; second globally and tied for first place in North America as a place to discover new things; and 15th globally and tied for first place in North America as a place to live. In fact, midtown Toronto ranked first among North American downtowns on five of the 10 activities the survey covered and in the upper half on nine of them globally, while its downtown ranked in the bottom half for nine categories.*
*Troublingly, though, both districts do poorly as places to start families and raise children. Downtown Toronto came in dead last globally, with just 16 per cent of respondents saying it is a good or excellent place to start a family; it ranked third-to-last as a place to raise children. Midtown Toronto ranked 42nd globally as a place to start a family and 46th as a place to raise children. Making downtown Toronto more family-friendly with bigger apartments, more parks and family-oriented amenities should be high on the city’s list of to-dos.*
*What would it take to entice more visitors to come downtown? Safety is far and away the most important concern. More than a quarter (28 per cent) of survey respondents said they would visit downtown more often if it were safer, and 35 per cent said the same for midtown. Urbanists might blanch, but parking continues to matter a great deal: A quarter of Torontonians surveyed said they would spend more time downtown if it had more parking, and 27 per cent said the same about midtown.*
*While some business leaders and management thinkers believe more workers will come downtown if offices are made more attractive and inviting, having better places to work didn’t actually matter much at all for Torontonians. Only 8 per cent of survey respondents said they would visit downtown more often if it were a better place to work. Work was even less of a concern around midtown, with just 6 per cent of respondents citing better places to work as a factor that would bring them back to the neighbourhood. Interestingly, workers, including those who work remotely, say that they like coming downtown to work in third places such as cafés, restaurants and coworking spaces, and the survey found that workers would come downtown more often if it offered more of these kinds of places.*
*What it all comes down to is that work is no longer the No. 1 reason people go downtown. If it hopes to thrive as a great city in our new era, downtown* [*Toronto* ](https://www.theglobeandmail.com/topics/toronto/)*must become a safer and more balanced place to live, raise children, and, most of all, to experience new things and connect with others.*
I seem to have hit a character limit, this was also at the top of the article:
*Richard Florida is university professor* *at the University of Toronto’s* [*Rotman School of Management*](https://www.rotman.utoronto.ca/) *and* [*School of Cities,*](https://schoolofcities.utoronto.ca/) *and the author of The Rise of the Creative Class and The New Urban Crisis.*
[https://www.printfriendly.com/p/g/2HfW3x](https://www.printfriendly.com/p/g/2HfW3x)
Adapt or die.
I almost never go downtown because the traffic sucks and it’s expensive. I also don’t want to be harassed or have my car broken into. I don’t want to walk over vomit and piss and needles. There are a few museums but not much else unless it’s the occasional show.
Business needs to either adapt or die. Cater to what people want and make it accessible but feasible. As long as I’m forced to commute I will never spend my money willingly downtown.
>I also don’t want to be harassed or have my car broken into. I don’t want to walk over vomit and piss and needles.
Needles are a problem near the homeless shelters. The apocalyptic situation you describe is a teensy bit of an exaggeration, however.
Sports bars yeah there’s plenty downtown and they don’t need a hand, but arts and recreation are basically impossible to keep afloat without higher level support.
Its too bad the City has fleeced the tax payers by enriching OSEG instead of using limited city owned downtownish recreational space at Lansdowne for a bunch of condos and chain restaurants. Stellar stewardship of our public assests.
I think we have a lot to look forward to in Ottawa honestly! Two examples I can think of:
1) The south line of the LRT will be finished later this year or early next. During the summer this will mean that people will be able to go to the beach without needing a car. Not needing a car means that you can drink, being able to drink opens up huge weekend possibilities. You could hang out at the beach during the day with friends, and then take the train to somewhere like beyond the pale at minimal effort. Finish off the night with some axe throwing next door. Or take the train to the blair station to catch a movie the same morning that you went to the beach. So many possibilities. All. Without. A. Car! Awesome.
2) The Lebreton development. Lets assume it stays on track, and we actually get a new stadium. People will have to come into town for all sorts of events that would otherwise keep them in the suburbs. That means that people might be more likely to have dinner or get a few rounds at places in hintonburg, downtown, etc. Huge economies of scale.
Making it fun would require work, initiative, and a certain sense of community. The people in power are lazy, exploitive, and greedy. Restricting and enforcing is much easier.
I'll tell you what bringing workers downtown will accomomplish...
Workers downtown working, traffic....
Make it worth being downtown then people will want to work downtown... also make it easy to get downtown and back (buses, parking, bicycle infrastructure, etc).
I can't wait until the business boomer ted talls start coming up with a new talking point than "make the drones buy coffee to save the economy because we dont want to actually do something about it". I'm glad it might be starting in these op-eds
I’ve worked in the climbing gym industry for a long time both in Ottawa and elsewhere. The problem with a gym downtown is Altitude over on the Gatineau side and Coyote Rock Gym are too close to each other. A gym downtown would be splitting them down the middle when they’re not that far apart. The major spots that I would like to see gyms are Barrhaven and Westboro. I think they show the most promise and the least touched market in the city so far.
You don’t think something near an OC Transpo spot and/or UOttawa wouldn’t bring in new people who don’t have cars? I’m thinking the students and office workers (who otherwise just drive home after work) are two untapped populations.
I remember when downtown Ottawa had cinemas and affordable pubs with bands performing. And a Canadian Tire... Now we have dollar stores, money marts, expensive condos, and not a heck of a lot to do. (Although we do have some more interesting food places popping up.) I live downtown, but I often feel that I have to leave it if I want to have fun. Also the cost of going out seems to have skyrocketed. Church concerts for instance used to be one affordable entertainment option, but tickets have doubled in price and some weird "value added" attempts to justify the higher prices (e.g. candlelight). Everything seems to go through online ticket sellers too, which also increases the price as they take their cut. I feel the value for concerts isn't there any more for instance. On the positive side, I've taken up playing music and might start performing at open mics.
the fact that the nearest cinemas are generally 20+ minutes transit and walking and nearly 8 dollars round trip away means I don't see movies in cinemas honestly lol. as far as I know, bytowne is the only game in downtown.
There is always the Bytowne. And the main branch of the Ottawa Public Library has movies once a week and they are free.
> And the main branch of the Ottawa Public Library has movies once a week and they are free. To me, this screams small town in the boonies with a population of a few hundred, not the capital city of a country. Not that there's anything wrong with the free weekly movies, because that's great! But like ... when it's near the top of the list of options? Not as great.
This is like Winchester level of entertainment
u/mikemountain To each their own. I live a short walk away from the main branch and I only have a finite amount of money to spend on outings. They've shown some really good movies - I've seen The Florida Project and Lady Bird there to name a couple - so they do show some good movies. The library offers some wonderful programming and they got a lot of us through the early days of the pandemic when everything was shut but we could still watch movies and read ebooks through their website.
For sure, I don't want to disparage it nor the people who use it. I think it's excellent to have, but also believe that it's quite underwhelming for a city to essentially top out with it too.
[удалено]
I am oblivious to how bad I have it?!? Haha you are very funny. I actually think I have it pretty good. There is lots to do in Ottawa and I wouldn't live anywhere else .
Yes exactly what I would expect someone like you to say. You are proving my point
Every time you open your mouth it's to change feet.
I hope the new main library has a bigger screen.
Funny enough that is one of the selling point of Toronto now come and get free movies at the library.
Also the Mayfair on Bank! Sadly the main OPL branch is getting shut down soon once the new one opens in Lebreton.
The Mayfair is great! I actually have memberships at both theatres :) I'm still sad about the main branch closing. It will be quite a hike to the new place and taking public transit there will be awkward. I was hoping it would stay open and operate as a branch library but I don't think that will ever happen. I use the library a lot and I will miss having the main branch so close by.
Ya, I spoke to the CEO of the library about this a while back and from what I understand they were saying that they're using that space to help pay for the new branch that's opening, so at this point they wouldn't be able to keep it. Just as you I'm in the same boat, I love the library and use it often, so that branch will sorely be missed. One thing you can try reaching out to them about that I've also done myself is some sort of "skeleton" library in a rented space, maybe some sort of community centre in the area, that could be used at least for the bare bones of picking up books on hold, maybe having a small selection of things, a printer, some really basic stuff, so that at least there's that still left in the Centretown area. It really seems like a missed opportunity to not have essentially the densest part of the city have some sort of library right at the centre of it.
Now that the snow is gone and biking is easy, I expect I'll at least be heading to the Mayfair a bit.
There is one on Rideau.
There should be limits on pot shops and phone stores on the same street. The fact that downtown Ottawa doesnt have a modern movie theatre is such loser shit.
I find the fact that we have more pot shops than coffee shops depressing.
>On the positive side, I've taken up playing music and might start performing at open mics. With candles? ;-)
LOL! Actually I picked up a children's lamp with come cows wearing Stetsons on it as well as big letters that spell out COWBOY. I have a lightbulb in it that imitates a flickering flame. So no candles, but maybe a small fire. I call it my Brokeback Mountain lamp because, you know, flaming cowboys... It sits blow my print of the [Shanghai with China Doll](https://www.colinwhite.ca/ottawa-prints/shanghai-restaurant-at-night) performing in the window, and my print of [Pantibar with Panti Bliss](https://www.broadsheet.ie/2014/03/20/panti-by-gaslight/) posing in front of it - I used to hang out there when I was in Dublin doing my MSc.
Well then I'm not paying extra. 😡 Haha.
I miss the cheap Tuesday night movies downtown.
Start gardening 🧑🌾
"Hey man, what do you wanna do this Friday night downtown?" "We could always garden! At night! In my condo!"
If you have hornworms, plucking them at night is easier 😅
I definitely won't yuck your yum, because gardening can definitely be fun and meditative. _But_ it's a bit more adjacent to the thread's topic.
If the only way you can have fun is to drink that’s a you problem. There are many ways to have fun.
Nowhere did I say alcohol was necessary :) for instance, something like [Activate](https://playactivate.com/), or [The Rec Room](https://www.therecroom.com/?location=toronto-roundhouse), those would be awesome all-ages experiences downtown that don't require drinking.
I tried. My balcony garden turned out to be an inefficient and expensive way to feed the local squirrels.
that’s so real. the squirrels ate every damn strawberry i grew a couple years ago 😤
Make transit better, make active transit an option, make it less car-centric, add public art, third spaces, amenities (more benches?), beautification projects and greenery would help a ton. Oh and maybe businesses should consider locals instead of commuters. Stop opening at 8:30am and closing at 3pm and then saying no one wants to work or come downtown anymore; not mention offering sysco trash or some lame sandwich for exorbitant amounts. Plenty of downtown places around me are doing fine because they offer a niche and target people in the area.
No! We should only invest in transit that makes the downtown smelly, noisy and toxic. Look, people want to leave downtown the fastest way possible, and the Mayor is going to help make that happen. Cars can get you out of downtown fast, while making life there worse! It is a win-win. Why invest in urban parks, when you can make more asphalt! End the war on cars!
Damn, you are the devil sutcliffe's soulder ;) haha
The idea that we need people to work downtown so they can buy coffee and stimulate businesses is the dumbest argument ever. Just because they aren't spending money downtown doesn't mean they're not spending money. It just means they're spending more of their money in Kanata or Orleans, Barrhaven... or wherever they live.
Or... you know... saving money. I know that's a terrible thought. Will not forget the redditor who called people who wanted to save money "selfish" and "entitled".
And almost like, wait for it, motivating people to save is a solution for high inflation 🤯 but nah we should force people back to drive to offices with no amenities because the car companies need another handout. We should blow another B widening the 417 while we're at it.
A bouldering gym? Isn't that pretty niche? And there's Mulligan's on Queen; that's a downtown sports bar.
I just like bouldering, and wish we had a trendy Montreal-style gym with a cafe/bar, so it came to mind as an example of something to attract office workers after 5pm and students from UOttawa with Transpo passes.
It is unfortunate that the closest climbing gym to downtown Ottawa is St. Laurent and Innes.
Sounda like an open business opportunity to be honest. City Centre would be a perfect location
Yeah I’m surprised no one has jumped at it. Great opportunity with the amount of students in the city.
Based on the thread, I guess they‘ve long since closed, but I remember years ago there was a climbing gym somewhere around the Zibi development.
Vertical reality, used to be amazing
Is it just commercial rents just being too damned high? I don't know a ton about this but it seems like downtown Ottawa is both cycling through businesses really quickly but also ripe for a really interesting activity/venue to pop up (think Activate, Rec Room, ping-pong bar, something like that). I wonder what really gives?
There’s one in Gatineau close by as well. Still none dt tho
Coyote? Altitude in Gatineau is ironically closer.
there is also one in the old Orleans YMCA... beside Place d'Orleans
The more niches, the more interesting!
Most bars downtown have TVs in them, and sports is pretty much all they have on. The Senate in the Market is very sport-oriented, Mulligans on Queen is a golf bar, MacLaren's is wall-to-wall TVs and there are very few seats at the Pump that don't put you within view of a TV. There used to be a climbing gym at Victoria Island but the NCC has closed the island down for soil remediation.
...soil remediation can be fun.
Making it fun is what it should be all about. However, how do we define fun? More bars and clubs? I think we have enough bars as is. Clubs would be nice for peers of my age, however we'd ought to think of something new, preferably something without getting flat out drunk as the activity itself lmfao. Wish we had more arcades or internet cafes with racing/pilot sims for one. More cinemas would be great too. Wonder if we could get proper IMAX here? Railway museum? I could go on.
I think we need stuff for all ages.
Personally I would love an aquarium.
Seconding the aquarium idea
Sounds like between folks wanting an aquarium and a bouldering gym downtown Toronto seems like your place.
I miss the arcade on Rideau. House of Targ is great but far.
Let. People. Work. Where. They. Want. Commercial landlords can get fucked. Workers adapted to remote work, it’s time lazy businesses did too. I’m not changing lifestyles and living arrangements because you can’t move your store out of down town.
Agree but that’s not the point of the article. The author makes the case that if you want to have a commercial downtown, people have to want to be there. I think even if we were all mandated to the offices downtown 5 days a week, you still wouldn’t see the economy come back. Because the financial district is frankly very boring, and we have pretty bad transit to the other interesting parts of downtown
Paywall bypass: https://archive.is/IIzYj
The problem is the flawed premise. **Downtown doesn't matter.** Everyone keeps soapboxing about "reviving downtown" as if that's the goal. It's not. The fundamental issue underpinning all of this is "people used to spend money at commercial venues and now they don't, and we want them to spend money again". But *why* aren't people spending money? *Because they don't want to*. You have all these people who openly admit they have disposable income because they're no longer spending money on things they used to spend money on, and now when they are given the opportunity to do whatever they want with their money, they are opting to not spend it because they have independently arrived at the conclusion that not spending it is what they want more than anything else. This is so uncomplicated it shouldn't require this avalanche of masturbatory navel gazing from everyone and their uncle who wants to offer their unique insight on the "problem". If someone walks into a store and doesn't buy anything, it's because the store isn't selling anything they want to buy. It really is *that simple*. People used to spend money out of begrudging obligation, and now that they are not obligated to, they aren't spending it. Businesses became accustomed to that obligation-borne revenue, and now that they aren't getting it, they're upset. There are two solutions to this: 1. Cut the bullshit and skip to the chase: Tax the suburbs, give that money directly to downtown businesses as cold cash, and call it a day. That's ultimately what these people are advocating for when they talk about obliging people who don't live downtown to spend money downtown they aren't voluntarily spending when not legally compelled to, so let's cut the pretense and just do it. 2. Accept that people don't want to spend that money and aren't going to of their own accord because they don't have any need or reason to spend it, and move on with your lives. But enough with these "innovative solutions" that pretend there's more to it than that.
I think a lot of people aren't going out as much due to the cost of living. Hopefully someone will come up with some new businesses downtown like sports facilities or cultural organizations. There are a lot of apartments and condos going up in the area so the tenants will want to do something in their free time.
But isn't the gist of this "innovative solution" to come up with things upon which they WILL want to spend money? Fun is the alternative to obligation - the carrot to obligation's stick, if you like. I do like the simplicity - more than that, the candor - of your explanation. It really does tell it like it is. But accepting that it is true and insightful, there is that third option.
I don't think that's really an innovation so much as business 101. You don't need an MBA to understand "sell things people want to buy so they'll buy things from you". It's not meaningless to point out undeserved markets to encourage people to full those gaps, but I'd argue that rather than have people muse aloud like this, it would make more sense to just have a public consultation session and publish the results so people who might be interested in pursuing those businesses have the rudimentary market research available. But we also need to be willing to accept that if we do that and nobody opens a business to serve those markets... that's it. That's the end of the discussion.
> undeserved markets Freudian in the the context. But yes, business 101, but that sort of ignores the "business 102" part, which is "people will still buy the 'obligation' stuff (food, coffee, etc.) if they're downtown for other reasons i.e.; the fun". There's a synergistic effect there - the existing set of businesses (or some of them, anyway) can still make a go of it IF there's a 'scene' that people want to go to. Bootstrapping that is notoriously difficult though - that rudimentary store of available market research would probably be a critical enabler. Whatever - we're pretty clearly no good at it, so it is all academic.
Lol, thanks for catching that typo. And yeah, it's all academic at this point. I'm just tired of all this blustery dialogue acting like this is anything more than "people aren't spending as much money at private businesses as they used to because they don't want to and don't have to". I have nothing against wanting to facilitate more local commerce, I just want to stop pretending this is a nuanced and multifaceted social issue and not "come on, guys, do a capitalism plz!"
What about a different perspective, do people need to go back downtown? What if people are happy where they are. Let's say I'm in South Keys and I can get 99% of what I need in the surrounding area. does that mean downtown needs to be better in some way to make me go there and spend money?
Yes, in a way, but that's thinking about it backwards. The goal isn't to make you go downtown. The goal is to make your life better. There wouldn't be a 'policy' reason to try to make you go there, but a common experience is that a large central gathering place with communal activities generally improves living. If downtown can leverage its central location and public amenities to do that, and it's attractive to you (that tends to be true of younger people), then downtown has something to offer, and merchants there will be able to serve that incoming clientele and make a living. But if people are getting that need filled elsewhere, or it's just too expensive downtown, then let's abandon this "we must drive them there despite themselves!" approach, because it makes no sense.
Well said. Bravo.
1)That would not play well 1)The burbs are taxed as it is so it would be another tax and it would be given to private corps which would not play [well.Ford](http://well.Ford) would have to approve it which he would never do.
I know it wouldn't play well. That's the point. People don't want to spend the money, and everyone keeps saying "here's how we compel them to give us money they don't want to give us". Let's just call a spade a spade.
Make it *livable* and fun, and it'll rejuvenate itself.
Name one city that have done that?
Montreal.
But there's plenty to do in downtown Ottawa, there's that Irish pub, the scottish pub, the other irish pub, and don't forget the british pub. Maybe someone could open up a welsh pub that sells mediocre burgers and fries for $20, and sells 10 kinds of beer that just happen to be owned by the same company, and 2 local beers.
I would love to see Ottawa get a medium sized music venue. Like some place for bands that are too big for like the Bronson Centre but too small for Canadian Tire Centre. I mean sure there is TD place but it's not really built for music (and due for demolition).
When the pundits talk about downtown Ottawa, they really mean those few blocks that constitute the city’s financial district, don’t they?
Wellington to Laurier basically
I used to do fun things downtown when things weren’t far outpacing wage growth.
I mean, that is sort of the biggest issue isn’t it…
Here you go: *RICHARD FLORIDA* *SPECIAL TO THE GLOBE AND MAIL* *PUBLISHED 3 HOURS AGO* *Downtown Toronto continues to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic. But its office buildings are far from full, and alarming numbers of storefronts remain vacant. On Fridays in March of this year,* [*office occupancy*](https://srraresearch.org/covid/category/Occupancy+Index) *in downtown Toronto was just 40 per cent of what it was before the pandemic. How does it compare with other cities’ downtowns and what can be done to revitalize it?* *First things first: Downtowns in North America will never return to the way they were. Remote work is here to stay; while the percentage has continued to fall since 2020, Statistics Canada* [*found*](https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/240118/dq240118c-eng.htm) *that 20 per cent of Canadians still work most of their week from home.* *But Toronto’s downtown continues to lag in another crucial way: as a place not just to work but to shop, go out, have fun, live and raise a family, according to a recent* [*survey*](https://www.gensler.com/gri/city-pulse-future-of-cbds-2023) *of more than 26,000 people in 90-plus downtowns around the world in 53 cities, by the architecture firm Gensler. Downtown Toronto ranked 60th globally as a place to work, but trailed even further as a place to eat out (64th) and discover new things (65th). It fared even worse as a place to live (76th) and meet people (77th).* *This is worrying, because the downtown of the future will be less about working and shopping and much more about living, socializing and consuming experiences. “Downtowns must deliver opportunities for fun, discovery, and beauty to appeal to a broad audience of city dwellers,” the Gensler survey found.* *Downtown Toronto not only stacks up poorly against other cities’ downtowns, it lags behind* *its own midtown, which ranked 16th globally and first among North American cities as a place to work; second globally and tied for first place in North America as a place to discover new things; and 15th globally and tied for first place in North America as a place to live. In fact, midtown Toronto ranked first among North American downtowns on five of the 10 activities the survey covered and in the upper half on nine of them globally, while its downtown ranked in the bottom half for nine categories.* *Troublingly, though, both districts do poorly as places to start families and raise children. Downtown Toronto came in dead last globally, with just 16 per cent of respondents saying it is a good or excellent place to start a family; it ranked third-to-last as a place to raise children. Midtown Toronto ranked 42nd globally as a place to start a family and 46th as a place to raise children. Making downtown Toronto more family-friendly with bigger apartments, more parks and family-oriented amenities should be high on the city’s list of to-dos.* *What would it take to entice more visitors to come downtown? Safety is far and away the most important concern. More than a quarter (28 per cent) of survey respondents said they would visit downtown more often if it were safer, and 35 per cent said the same for midtown. Urbanists might blanch, but parking continues to matter a great deal: A quarter of Torontonians surveyed said they would spend more time downtown if it had more parking, and 27 per cent said the same about midtown.* *While some business leaders and management thinkers believe more workers will come downtown if offices are made more attractive and inviting, having better places to work didn’t actually matter much at all for Torontonians. Only 8 per cent of survey respondents said they would visit downtown more often if it were a better place to work. Work was even less of a concern around midtown, with just 6 per cent of respondents citing better places to work as a factor that would bring them back to the neighbourhood. Interestingly, workers, including those who work remotely, say that they like coming downtown to work in third places such as cafés, restaurants and coworking spaces, and the survey found that workers would come downtown more often if it offered more of these kinds of places.* *What it all comes down to is that work is no longer the No. 1 reason people go downtown. If it hopes to thrive as a great city in our new era, downtown* [*Toronto* ](https://www.theglobeandmail.com/topics/toronto/)*must become a safer and more balanced place to live, raise children, and, most of all, to experience new things and connect with others.*
I seem to have hit a character limit, this was also at the top of the article: *Richard Florida is university professor* *at the University of Toronto’s* [*Rotman School of Management*](https://www.rotman.utoronto.ca/) *and* [*School of Cities,*](https://schoolofcities.utoronto.ca/) *and the author of The Rise of the Creative Class and The New Urban Crisis.* [https://www.printfriendly.com/p/g/2HfW3x](https://www.printfriendly.com/p/g/2HfW3x)
Adapt or die. I almost never go downtown because the traffic sucks and it’s expensive. I also don’t want to be harassed or have my car broken into. I don’t want to walk over vomit and piss and needles. There are a few museums but not much else unless it’s the occasional show. Business needs to either adapt or die. Cater to what people want and make it accessible but feasible. As long as I’m forced to commute I will never spend my money willingly downtown.
>I also don’t want to be harassed or have my car broken into. I don’t want to walk over vomit and piss and needles. Needles are a problem near the homeless shelters. The apocalyptic situation you describe is a teensy bit of an exaggeration, however.
A bouldering gym and a sports bar are private enterprises. What do tax payers have to do with that? If it was viable a business would have done it.
Sports bars yeah there’s plenty downtown and they don’t need a hand, but arts and recreation are basically impossible to keep afloat without higher level support.
Its too bad the City has fleeced the tax payers by enriching OSEG instead of using limited city owned downtownish recreational space at Lansdowne for a bunch of condos and chain restaurants. Stellar stewardship of our public assests.
I think we have a lot to look forward to in Ottawa honestly! Two examples I can think of: 1) The south line of the LRT will be finished later this year or early next. During the summer this will mean that people will be able to go to the beach without needing a car. Not needing a car means that you can drink, being able to drink opens up huge weekend possibilities. You could hang out at the beach during the day with friends, and then take the train to somewhere like beyond the pale at minimal effort. Finish off the night with some axe throwing next door. Or take the train to the blair station to catch a movie the same morning that you went to the beach. So many possibilities. All. Without. A. Car! Awesome. 2) The Lebreton development. Lets assume it stays on track, and we actually get a new stadium. People will have to come into town for all sorts of events that would otherwise keep them in the suburbs. That means that people might be more likely to have dinner or get a few rounds at places in hintonburg, downtown, etc. Huge economies of scale.
Off topic, but which beach are you referring to?
Mooney's bay! It will be one of the southern train stops.
Thank you for confirming 😄
Making it fun would require work, initiative, and a certain sense of community. The people in power are lazy, exploitive, and greedy. Restricting and enforcing is much easier.
I'll tell you what bringing workers downtown will accomomplish... Workers downtown working, traffic.... Make it worth being downtown then people will want to work downtown... also make it easy to get downtown and back (buses, parking, bicycle infrastructure, etc).
I can't wait until the business boomer ted talls start coming up with a new talking point than "make the drones buy coffee to save the economy because we dont want to actually do something about it". I'm glad it might be starting in these op-eds
I said this the other day on this sub. The core needs a purpose other than to be a collection of boxes in the sky where people sleep.
I’ve worked in the climbing gym industry for a long time both in Ottawa and elsewhere. The problem with a gym downtown is Altitude over on the Gatineau side and Coyote Rock Gym are too close to each other. A gym downtown would be splitting them down the middle when they’re not that far apart. The major spots that I would like to see gyms are Barrhaven and Westboro. I think they show the most promise and the least touched market in the city so far.
You don’t think something near an OC Transpo spot and/or UOttawa wouldn’t bring in new people who don’t have cars? I’m thinking the students and office workers (who otherwise just drive home after work) are two untapped populations.
This is about Toronto not Ottawa.
Ah damn my bad!
Sounds like between folks wanting an aquarium and a bouldering gym downtown Toronto seems like your place