marcus_a_j
Senior Member
Civic Mall Preliminary Design Concept (~6.5 mb)
My fear like so many past grand City Centre, Town Centre, Downtown plans (Think Mississauga, Scarborough and Oakville) is we never move beyond the proposed renderings, or only get partially built.
I took a tour of "Downtown Markham" recently and it has a good 20-30 years before it reaches any real critical mass to reach the proposed vision in the renderings. The key words being proposed and renderings. A lot can happen to the market during this period and I certainly hope they can achieve it all in the end.
To clarify, I took a tour of all of "Markham Centre" lands.
I took an extensive walking - transit tour beginning in histroic and beautiful Unionville, walked south to the new High School, checked out the YMCA - GO Station and hoped on board the the VIVA line through the centre of the lands.
I got off at South Town Blvd and checked out that Noa site, and walked across Highway 7, walked around the Tridel site, and toured the Town Hall and Performing Arts Centre.
Lots of open space with a lot of potential and plans. My fear like so many past grand City Centre, Town Centre, Downtown plans (Think Mississauga, Scarborough and Oakville) is we never move beyond the proposed renderings, or only get partially built.
After my recent tour, I found some excellent completed developments and several more under construction in Markham Centre, yet they are all too far spaced out and completely isolated from each other to make any real impact at the moment.
A fear shared by many, no doubt. I was thinking pretty much the same thing: the drawings have so much potential, but the effort to get there may be the dictated by the cheapest route available.
The only key ingredient missing in those hopelessly idealized renders are LRT lines, which shows how serious that burb is about mass transit in the future.
July 19, 2008
Looking southwest from Verclaire Gate and Birchmount Rd.