Mayor Lisa Helps, who has publicly mused about co-locating a casino with a sewage-treatment plant in Rock Bay, said she’s open to the idea of a casino, but not if it involves a large surface parking lot. “One of the core considerations is parking. So if we could have something closer to downtown with all of the parking underground, then sure. But what I don’t envision is a giant parking lot,” Helps said.
I have to say, it makes me very uncomfortable that Helps and Madoff and the city report are all talking about parking. Are we being groomed for a giant new surface parking lot somewhere in town? (I realize that Helps says otherwise. That's what worries me.)
We shouldn't be thinking about a casino at all if we're not thinking about it mainly as an instrument for activating a particular area or for linking areas together, etc. Use it to make something happen. DON'T STICK IT IN THE ESTABLISHED HEART OF DOWNTOWN.* Also, architecturally it should not be lame and it should not be gimmicky. An attractive modern building, like a new (urban) hotel or office complex, with lots of windows and commercial storefronts on the ground (and underground parking only, or maybe an attractive and/or well-concealed elevated parkade that could double as a city parkade). Not a giant doll house, not a giant log cabin, not a giant windowless bunker...
*Remember when Victorians used to worry about these sorts of things? The Eaton's Centre was going to dominate downtown? Every new thing will dominate every other established thing? Except a casino. A casino could never do that. Because $$$$.
Edited by aastra, 24 November 2015 - 01:18 PM.