Dear Editor:
Re: City takes on $94-million project alone, The Record, May 2.
When it comes to the rationalizing risking $57 million of City of New Westminster's taxpayers money, Mayor Wayne Wright claims there is a need for Class A office space in New West and the promotion of the civic centre holding conventions.
Most of the commercial and retail development taking place in the region is in Surrey and south of the Fraser. In the north sector, Port Coquitlam is the one municipality that seems to have the land space to develop commercial and retail. Most offices that are moving out of downtown Vancouver seem to be moving to Surrey because Surrey has a lot of the amenities and the willingness to supply those amenities to both commercial and retail, plus the landspace to develop it.
Everyone talks about revitalizing the downtown of New Westminster. Traditionally, downtown areas of cities are where there's a concentration of retail, business and residents.
In New Westminster, ironically the "downtown" is actually "uptown." But once again, by moving the big retail in New West over to Queensborough Landing and also ceding it to Burnaby (Big Bend and Lougheed mall) or Coquitlam, the uptown area that is actually the downtown core of New Westminster is starting to suffer.
Take a walk through Royal City Centre. The anchor tenant in the mall: Dollarama, aside from the Safeway. Across the street (kitty corner) you have London Drugs and Save On Foods.
Zellers in Royal City Centre - gone. And looking at it now, potentially, that would have been a Target store, as Target competes with Wal-Mart. But my main point is that the people have decided to make uptown the commercial hub of New West, not downtown. And people and their money speak loudly.
The city spent a lot of resources and time facilitating the development of the B.C. Electric building. And who is the big tenant at the front entrance of New Westminster, the "big draw," the first thing you see when you drive from west to east through the downtown area?
The Salvation Army Thrift Store. Not a higher end retail store to draw a higher end clientele. Nope. A thrift store. Don't get me wrong, thrift stores have their place in the retail scheme of things, but still - right at the front gate of your exciting, vibrant downtown core?
On the other side of the street, you have the new development. Yet when you look at it, it's a giant concrete monstrosity. You don't see anything other than a Shoppers. And west to east, to access it - clearly, someone didn't do their homework on that one.
To me, it's clear that some of the people who own the buildings downtown, the ones who don't upkeep them, leave them boarded up (Front Street side) have shown how interested they are in revitalizing the downtown core.
So: $57 million, plus the $35 million gaming grant. How much would that have done being put to work in other areas of the city? Such as the Queensborough pedestrian bridge. Or better yet, what about partnering up with the provincial government and upgrading the Queensborough Bridge?
I mean, the city has made Queensborough the focal point of retail development and has forced people to cross a bridge to go shopping in New Westminster, pushing more traffic (commuter and commercial) onto the bridge. Not to mention the amount of development that's taken place during the last couple of years in Queensborough. Yet it's still a two-lane bridge. And constantly congested, bringing that congestion all the way down Stewardson, sometimes as far as 12th Street.
That's just one suggestion. I'm sure lots of people would have lots of ideas about how to spend that kind of money.
I don't see anything wrong with simply adding a civic centre to the downtown core. If someone comes along and wants to partner up with the city within the next six months, prior to the "point of no return" on the issue of capping the building, then the plans are in place, owned by the city (I hope).
And then the city can simply move forward with a new partner on the office space development. The city should perhaps be open to other alternatives other than just straight office space.
Dave Lundy, New Westminster
