Now, I've stared long and hard at this, as the text is kind of difficult to make out.
It composes of parking lots, greenspace, parking lots, and retail. And a hotel with a waterpark. Cut out the greenspace and holy shit, it looks like POLO PARK!
I have to ask the question: WHAT will this do for "urban renewal." And another question: What IS urban renewal, according to Sam Katz, Gary Doer, and David Asper. If their vision of urban renewal is "it looks nice, there are some trees, ample parking, and big-box corporate retail outlets that suburbanites like to shop in," then I'm turned right off.
I don't like this proposal one bit. Any "renewal" will be strictly new buildings: the stadium, parking lots and hotel. I doubt, 110%, that this neighborhood will increase very much in value, or that it would become a bustling pedestrian centre.
And now, from blueandgold.ca, we have this letter that Mr Asper wrote.
Within the new space to the south of the new Higgins will be a new 30-40,000 seat stadium with a $30 million budget increase to $150 million. For fans, this will result in everything originally proposed and more.
So now he's spending more. And the idea is that the Polo Park site is...what, too expensive? He's seriously increasing his funding here for this stadium idea, isn't it CHEAPER to build at Polo Park?
Oh. Ho ho ho.
This is my favourite quote. Because Asper uses these two words that I absolutely LOOOOOOOoooooooooove.
*drumroll*
We are also looking to construct a nearly $70 million resort featuring an indoor/outdoor waterpark with retractable walls, a hotel and related amenities. This would be a world-class downtown tourist attraction created by the design team responsible for Disneyworld, West Edmonton & Niagara Falls water parks.
WORLD CLASS!
Did ya hear that? World class! World! Fuckin! Class!
We can add this to all the OTHER world class attractions soon coming to Winnipeg that will help drive urban renewal and downtown revitalization! Now we will have a WORLD CLASS Upper Fort Garry interpretive centre with over 400 000 artifacts! We will have a WORLD CLASS museum that draws 570 visitors per day! We will have a WORLD CLASS water park and hotel!
People will come from ALL OVER THE WORLD to visit UFG, and then go to the museum, and then take a slide down Mr Asper's WORLD CLASS WATER SLIDES!
Mr Ledohowski's water park doesnt have a chance, nobody will go there, his isn't WORLD CLASS! It's DOOMED to fail!
To help move fans about on game day, we would acquire a Disney-like fan tram system to efficiently move people to and from their vehicles on event days.
There's that word again. Disney. The Winnipeg Blue Bombers Disneyland Stadium Fantasy Land Extravaganza in the World Class Point Douglas Neighborhood of WINNIPEG.
Tram system...isn't that like...rails? We can give a rail-transit system to accomodate Bomber fans but we can't fix the Transit system we have now? And my tax dollars are going to pay for it? Hey...I bet those trams have AIR CONDITIONING!
The thing that bothers me the most about this whole plan is what happens to the existing stadium site, Mr Asper gets it.
Because, it makes too much sense to build the new stadium there already, and give him a bunch of taxpayer money to do it. So instead, we'll just hand him the land on a silver platter so he can develop it into MORE RETAIL (holy fuck, after that happens, Polo Park can separate from Winnipeg and become it's OWN COUNTRY!) to "subsidize" cost of running the new urban-renewal stadium in SDP.
Well one thing is for sure. I am not sold on this plan at all.
I don't think it will bring urban renewal, I think it will stay as an urban wasteland that suburbanites use approximately 10 times a year.
For the last however many years we couldnt get ONE water park, and now we can have two.
According to Pagtakhan, SPD was already planning to improve their neighborhood on their own. So what happens to their ideas and plans? The big bad stadium is going to come through and they'll have to play to Asper's and Katz's terms. Whatever they have planned will be replaced by Starbucks, Old Navies and Moxies.
The extension of Waterfront is the biggest pipe dream going on in this city right now. IT IS NOT FOR THE LAYMAN. Therefore extending it into SPD, the "new" waterfront will not be for the layman either. It will be for the "young professional" making six figures. I believe this is called "gentrification," and I am far from the first person to say that and I will be far from the last. It is a word perhaps Asper, Doer, and Katz should familiarize themselves with, and compare it to with who the residents of SPD are now.
If urban renewal is done for the "benefit" of SPD, it would not include a stadium, retail outlets, parking lots and water parks. It is done for the benefit of the Bomber fan, who does not live in SPD.
And lastly, again, day in and day out, the FreeP does not seem to present any viewpoints like mine, as if their reporters are brainwashed. They even make it seem like this is a for-sure-for-sure-for-sure deal, and that Polo Park isn't in the running anymore.
Polo Park is in the running. Apparantly. I hope Mr Asper reads my blog. And all the other blogs.
Put it in Polo Park, dammit. We don't need a stadium and water park to spruce up SPD.
2 comments:
"People will come from ALL OVER THE WORLD"
... through our WORLD CLASS AIRPORT!
(I've seen the billboards).
Graham
"What is Urban renewal?"
As usual beauty is in the eye of the beholder. To a city politician or planner it probably has large element of "increased assessment base".
It might have a little less resonance when one considers that the proposal will likely give away all the taxation on that new base for probably seven years.
A quick calculation says that makes the number zero compared to at least some positive tax if just left alone.
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