CollingwoodToday welcomes letters to the editor at [email protected] or via the website. Please include your full name, daytime phone number and address (for verification of authorship, not publication). This letter was sent in response to a story that ran on July 9, ‘A lot of value’: Residents sing praises of $60M+ arts centre project.
The consultants’ recommendation to build the arts centre on the Pine Street parking lot is a poor choice.
The downtown parking lots are used daily and are vital to the functionality of a working town centre. The idea of demolishing the recently built bus terminal and to build underground parking ‘like for like’ at a cost of $18 million to $20 million for the parking lot alone makes little sense.
The consultants’ process of site selection was flawed from the beginning. They limited the selection of potential development sites to property that is presently owned by the town. Why?
By missing out considering land for sale on the open market, they have missed the obvious. There are several vacant potential development sites available of suitable size, with good visibility and easy access.
On the east side of town on Highway 26, there is land available of suitable size with great visibility and easy access.
On the west side of town, also on Highway 26, the 2016 waterfront master plan identifies two potential development sites in the western harbour abutting Black Ash Creek.
These sites should be considered.
We don’t need to shoehorn an arts centre into a parking lot. This $50-million-plus landmark facility deserves better.
Time to look elsewhere.
Ray Porter
Collingwood
