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Downtown

IanO said:
Nope.

We lost a destination retailer and are regressing.
Click to expand...

This is our major bar/club zone downtown now, so I'm fine with it. I would've preferred something that is opened throughout the day, but we don't actually have many nightclubs downtown, and there are many younger residents in this area who want more of a variety of offerings.

Kunitz was expensive and had a limited selection. I found 1 pair of shoes I liked and bought from there in 5 visits over the years.
I think it was a bad spot for them even before the pandemic. They should've been located further west on 112 street (closer to stores like Who Cares?), or on 104 street. They were a fish out of water IMO.
 
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Downtown of the future ideally has vibrant hospitality scene, like any major city, but also has some retail. I don't see this as a regression, the hospitality scene has weathered the pandemic and years of recession pretty well. What we need now is a plan to help retail return, that's going to take much longer to resolve but even something like Loblaws opening is a major win. I think specifically we're missing a few large 'lifestyle' retailers that sell clothing, shoes, beauty products etc. A gap left by the departure of Holts and The Bay, and a failure to have one of the top 4 fast fashion retailers (GAP, H&M, Zara or Uniqlo).
 
IanO said:
Nope.

We lost a destination retailer and are regressing.
Click to expand...
Like it or not. Nightclubs create a buzz and bring younger people into downtown from the suburbs. In order for our downtown to be successful we need to attract all types of people who are into different activities. We also need a downtown that’s alive 2 am in the morning. Rather than being a dead zone. This checks a lot of boxes imo. That intersection is already pretty packed in the morning and having it with 3x the people at night all on the street adds vibrancy. We definitely need to keep retailers and attract new ones but this one already left and having this intersection be packed especially as it’s one of the corridors to the high level which leads to whyte ave, really adds a sense of vibrancy and sorta removes the whole “deadmonton” idea from peoples minds. Younger kids that are 18 and looking to move out and drive by areas like this downtown, will be more inclined to either live downtown, somewhere closer or at least want to make the commute and spend the weekends downtown.
 
I was surprised how much better calgarys nightlife was than vancouvers the other weekend. We could make strides there!
 
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Our nightlife here has the advantage of having so many students living in close proximity between whyte ave and downtown. We just need to have more higher end clubs here rather than just bars and arcades to really have a presence against other cities. There’s definitely a party culture in this city though that’s for sure.
 
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Don't know if anyone else was Downtown last night but it was pretty hopping. Between Al Fresco 104 Street (during the day), PrideFest, Garth Brooks fans and multiple grads, it was busy everywhere.

Certain amount of visible disorder that needs to be addressed, but when it's busy no one seems to really mind.
 
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