Interesting Ideas

Here are some ideas that should get your creative juices flowing:

MASSIVE DOWNTOWN REDEVELOPMENT

CKLW reported that:

• "A Windsor City Council committee is trying to figure out what to do with the old Armouries building in the downtown core. There are several options on the table, including using it for court operations or as a Windsor Symphony concert hall. A report is expected in September."

Come on now, this is Windsor. Time to "THINK BIG!" It's time for Eddie to become a huge land developer downtown and change the face of our City. After all, BLOG readers have known in advance that we are getting new City Hall soon at the BARN site once our mega-dollar Arena is finally built.

It can be done quickly too. All Eddie has to do is call up Chuck Mady who has great plans and drawings to redevelop the area around the Armouries. Chuck's propety is right beside the Armouries so a mutual deal could work out well for everyone. I am sure that his plans are adaptable to almost anything that the Mayor would want to do. Heck, if Chuck won't listen, why Eddie would just buy him out!

It would not be difficult for Eddie to find Chuck I am sure even though he has moved most of his operations to Toronto and elsewhere and been very successful after doing so. Councillor Junior could probably help Eddie find him as well if there was a problem.

I just hope that Eddie does better on this deal. When he was a Councillor, Eddie introduced the deal on the Mady Parking Garage and look at how many millions that cost us!

EDDIE'S BORDER MATH

I was never very good in school in multiplying and dividing numbers with decimals. I just kept putting the decimals in the wrong place.

I wonder if Council is any better.

Here's my problem:

• "Mayor Eddie Francis said the city has no choice but to counter with the best, to prove a tunnel for trucks can — and should — be built...
  
  The Parsons-Brinckerhoff team’s preliminary work locally has determined a few cut-and-cover tunnels — a trough covered with landscaping — to bury the traffic is the best method for Windsor and can be done fairly cheaply in the six-kilometre corridor stretching from Howard Avenue to E.C. Row Expressway...
  
  Tunnels built in Windsor would unlikely require ventilation towers or filters as long as they were no more than about 200 metres in length."

Council has seen the Presentation, Battagello spoke to the P-B people, informed sources told Gord Henderson what's in Schwartz's Plan. Everyone it seems knows everything about it but taxpayers. All we get are trial balloons to see how we react!

Now according to Gord's sources

• "The Schwartz proposal, which involves eight to nine tunnel sections of varying lengths, designed to shelter adjacent communities and create new parkland atop the tunnels."

If we have only shunnels since we do not want that ventilation buildings that would blast exhaust at people, then according to my math, only .2Km X 9 or 1.8KMs are underground. If the road length is 6 KM. What happens in the other 4.2 KMs?

Interestingly, Dave Wake of DRIC said

• "DRIC's project coordinator Dave Wake boasted of the positives of the "parkway" plan, citing its 10 short tunnels which add up to a total of 1.5 kilometres or 25 per cent of the border route being covered with parkland and recreational trials."

Are we really only fighting over only .3 KM? I am sure that you now saw the hint in the Star today that the City shunnels can be one KM long. Gotta keep those delays and stalling around don't we!

Will I have to learn new math now too?

A GARDINER EXPRESSWAY FOR WINDSOR

Again, Gord's column gave us some idea about what Schwartz might do. The idea that seemed the strangest of all was

• "a two-level roadway on E.C. Row west of Huron Church Road (with the lower level for trucks)"

Now I had already suggested something similar in my BLOG January 18, 2007 "A Different Windsor Champs Elysee." I suggested building an elevated road either on Huron Church or on the E C Row. We'd call it "Double-decking Windsor." How about that for a new slogan.

I had heard that:

• "a rough plan has been developed that could build an elevated road on Huron Church Road between E C Row and the new border crossing for well under $100M."

Oh no, you say, the Gardiner in Toronto is a mess so why would we want something similar here. Au contraire mes amis. If you think that, read the Sunday Toronto Star http://www.thestar.com/News/GTA/article/243325 The Gardiner:

• is not really a barrier to the waterfront any more
• There's a bit of hum from the traffic, but it's not the nuisance it used to be [just a bit of hum from the traffic]
• In Shanghai, a dizzying maze of highways is illuminated at night in vibrant neon colors. [and] they are consciously trying to make a place that people would enjoy walking through, beneath and beside. And they do – it attracts wide public use."
• could have "a creative mix of shops and studios under the Gardiner. "
• is "beautiful, totally sculptural"
• could have "a skating rink on the land under the tall pillars west of Bathurst, bike ramps rising over Parliament St. onto the railway viaduct, and replacing overhead lighting with a dazzling open basket weave of coloured lights arching across the Gardiner. "So it becomes a sinuous river of light moving through the city, something enormously bold, and a counterpoint to the CN Tower."

That Sam is sure helping us become a great city like Shanghai, London, New York, Louisville and Portland with a new Champs Elysee and now a sinuous river of light.

FUNKY BUS TERMINAL MATH FUNK

That was strange. I tried to find the press release about the opening of the new terminal on the City's website and could not find it. Is someone ashamed about it or something or is there something in it that we are not supposed to see? Wasn't it going to rejuvenate the downtown after all?

• "Mayor Eddie Francis defended the project, describing it as a catalyst for further investment in the urban village that's been envisioned downtown. He said the deal that will see St. Clair College moving hundreds of students into the Cleary International Centre would not have been reached without the transit deal."

Now here's the funny part about the financing. The issued press Release says:

• "Canada's New Government contributed $2.7 million through the federal Public Transit Capital Trust. The Government of Ontario contributed $3.2 million in transit expansion and provincial gas tax funding to the City of Windsor. The City of Windsor has contributed $1.6 million, including $300,000 from the City Centre Revitalization Program, and $100,000 from the Windsor Accessibility Committee (WAC)."

I don't understand that since the City's contribution was to be the land worth $1.6M. So why did the other groups have to contribute $400K? Does this mean that the City's land was only worth $1.2M? Or did the City have to put up cash too? It is so confusing

Hmmmm...where is the Greyhound money in that press release? The City was supposed to receive about $2.2 million from Greyhound for which Greyhound got a 50% equity interest in the terminal. That was not in upfront cash actually but in paying operating costs: payment was to be 30 years at $48,000 per year (or about $700,000 in today's dollars). Plus "the city will also take over ownership of the old terminal on Chatham Street East, which is estimated to be worth $800,000 and can be sold."

I told you before that Greyhound was not really paying anything for its interest. What a deal that is:

• "Instead of them giving up-front cash, this is what they're giving, which still allows us to pay off the operating expenses," Francis said. The cost to operate the building is projected to be about $64,000 a year.
  
  The rest of the annual payments from Greyhound [ticket agent commission] will be put into a capital reserve account so that, as the building ages, money will be readily available to make repairs and pay taxes."

The numbers just did not seem to add up. My head started swimming. All I knew is that the City got half a terminal. In other words, only half of the "FUNK" or FU!

THE BLOCKBUSTER MOTION

Hmmmm....the Star reported in relation to the water and sewer bill 60 per cent increase that

• "Even Ward 2 Coun. Caroline Postma will be feeling the pinch. She said the property tax and utility rate increases will wipe out profits she makes on nine rental units she owns."

Wasn't she the Councillor that introduced the big Blockbuster Motion?

Whew, thank goodness that she was involved in drafting the By-law. I assume that the definition of "blockbuster" did not catch her properties. Therefore, she must not fall under the category of buying proprty in bad faith or she might have been charged under her own by-law.