CBBarnett
Senior Member
In addition to continual residential growth via replacement, conversion or net new, I also think new larger-scale entertainment options like a full movie theatre are super critical and currently missing. Yes there is a cineplex in Eau Claire for now, but it's surprisingly not very central to the inner city's urban density and isn't urban format. I am thinking something closer ot the East Village Superstore or the Beltline Canadian Tire equivalent.
It always struck me as a wasted opportunity when this Courthouse Park was built. Usually I am all for defending public realm and public spaces, the only thing is downtown doesn't actually need more of this type of public space. The park is designed pretty much as a corporate plaza featuring a few horse statues with limited uses beyond downtown workers to eat their lunches outside an hour a day, a few months a year.
Don't get me wrong - Courthouse park is nice enough as a park. But we have dozens of these spaces everywhere in the core, did we actually need another one? How does this park contribute to solving downtown's great challenges around being perceived as boring, empty and limited activity after 5 pm?
What should have gone there in my idealist world? Urban format cineplex.
I would have also accepted a proper, barrier-free public urban square style park. That would give full circulation to pedestrian in all directions fully integrated into the station, instead of yet another park broken up by concrete barriers and weird lines preventing access from many direction. The square could be used events, but would far more flexible and open than Olympic Plaza (with yet another weird, broken up design), while being located far closer and more integrated with transit, the mall and retail district, and the nearby population clusters of the central Beltline.
Often I think our inner city park designs here are too focused on creating quaint, intimate park amenities rather than proper monumental ones. It's almost designed to say this park should be a way to forget you are in a city, rather than celebrate and integrated into the highly urban context. Often they are unsuccessful in practice because that's not what is missing in highly urban areas. In a way, it's a suburban way of thinking about public spaces - the urban context should be minimized and managed, not celebrated and integrated with.
Best examples of these types of parks are seen in older NA cities like New York and all over Europe. A park design that imagines many thousands of different users daily, coming from all directions, with many just cutting through the park for efficient access to the train station. Century Gardens is getting closer but is limited by the parcels around it to fully be that square.
Of course we need both styles of park, but the downtown and surrounding areas should have some leanings toward more of that higher-capacity, urban and monumental style plaza than yet another quaint sitting area for office workers 1 hour a day.
TL/DR: build a urban format cineplex immediately adjacent to the LRT in downtown. Also build better, more urban parks.
It always struck me as a wasted opportunity when this Courthouse Park was built. Usually I am all for defending public realm and public spaces, the only thing is downtown doesn't actually need more of this type of public space. The park is designed pretty much as a corporate plaza featuring a few horse statues with limited uses beyond downtown workers to eat their lunches outside an hour a day, a few months a year.
Don't get me wrong - Courthouse park is nice enough as a park. But we have dozens of these spaces everywhere in the core, did we actually need another one? How does this park contribute to solving downtown's great challenges around being perceived as boring, empty and limited activity after 5 pm?
What should have gone there in my idealist world? Urban format cineplex.
- Directly connected to the existing mall via the Plus 15 to the 4 Street Station.
- Synergistic link to both the mall and the nearby Globe Theatre for the occasional film fest.
- Immediate, high-quality transit access for all quadrants. The only theatre directly on an LRT line.
- Attracts evening users, families and teenagers - everything the downtown is missing.
I would have also accepted a proper, barrier-free public urban square style park. That would give full circulation to pedestrian in all directions fully integrated into the station, instead of yet another park broken up by concrete barriers and weird lines preventing access from many direction. The square could be used events, but would far more flexible and open than Olympic Plaza (with yet another weird, broken up design), while being located far closer and more integrated with transit, the mall and retail district, and the nearby population clusters of the central Beltline.
Often I think our inner city park designs here are too focused on creating quaint, intimate park amenities rather than proper monumental ones. It's almost designed to say this park should be a way to forget you are in a city, rather than celebrate and integrated into the highly urban context. Often they are unsuccessful in practice because that's not what is missing in highly urban areas. In a way, it's a suburban way of thinking about public spaces - the urban context should be minimized and managed, not celebrated and integrated with.
Best examples of these types of parks are seen in older NA cities like New York and all over Europe. A park design that imagines many thousands of different users daily, coming from all directions, with many just cutting through the park for efficient access to the train station. Century Gardens is getting closer but is limited by the parcels around it to fully be that square.
Of course we need both styles of park, but the downtown and surrounding areas should have some leanings toward more of that higher-capacity, urban and monumental style plaza than yet another quaint sitting area for office workers 1 hour a day.
TL/DR: build a urban format cineplex immediately adjacent to the LRT in downtown. Also build better, more urban parks.
). Fixing downtown is not simply about buildings and uses - it's about creating cohesive public spaces that link properties together. That includes streets, parks, the transit system, and the +15.
