Mississauga Widesuites Condominiums | ?m | 35s | Conservatory Group | Richmond Architects

The trees in the centre of the road will be history as well one lane in each direction. 6 lanes reduce to 4 lanes.

The current ROW for the road is for 9 lanes of traffic and one reason for the far setback that exist today north of Cooksville GO Station.

Nothing is going to happen where the existing sidewalk is now and have to wait until 2013 to see any construction engineering drawings for this area. The Nov Open House for the LRT is to be cancel since the percentage of completed drawings are not near the 30% mark, as well other changes that have surface in the last few months need to be address.
 
RC8 said:
The setback wouldn't be too bad if it wasn't facing a highway. Hurontario (or Burnhamthorpe, or any other Mississauga arterial) is simply not human-scaled. Human-scaled retail in a non-human-scaled street tends to be ignored by passing cars. There is a reason why strip malls and big-box retail have huge obnoxious luminous signs visible from hundreds of metres away.

Mississauga continues to build good things (universities, transit, condos) on horrible streets and grid-systems. Even if all of Mississauga's downtown was taken by high-rise buildings the way these interact with these highways would still not be conducive to pedestrian activity.

It's specially frustrating because the 60s buildings in Mississauga's Port Credit actually show a degree of scale awareness that is lacking in all these new developments. It's almost as if city planners are going out of their way to not acknowledge something that has worked before in their own city.
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If the Burnhamthorpe buildings were built today they would be much closer to the street as per how Pinnacle Grand is being built and it would be mostly retail instead of condo style townhouses. I don't mind the linear park but I would have preferred podium type retail and offices similar to Parkside. Once this stretch of Burnhamthorpe is redone to include an LRT, it will be much more pedestrian friendly.

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Putting retail that far back from the street and sidewalk (behind bushes at that) can't be very healthy for the retail. Barely noticeable in the pictures let alone if you are driving by. Maybe half urban if even that.
 
Why can't these new downtowns/City Centres make up their minds if they want to be urban or suburban? If you choose to be a real downtown, go all the way and build a real urban district. I don't know why it's so hard for them to do. Just forget that little, useless strip of grass along the road and build a nice paved sidewalk, with a few benches here and there. It really doesn't require too much thought to figure it out and yet these suburban downtown wannabes just can't seem to do a decent job of it. I'm tired of these half-assed measures that satisfy nobody. That applies to Markham and Vaughan too.
 
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I think the reason suburban downtowns are like this is that planners are responding to the notion that traditional downtowns have too few parks and so by having more parkland they're creating a "downtown" that's superior to the real thing. The problem with these "city centres" is that they are quite small in area and have no surrounding inner city (the borders of which are where classic big-city parks tend to be located), so that once you put in the obligatory central park and have linear parks that radiate out from them to create a perceived "Parisian" feel, you don't have much space left to build on and you end up with a towers-in-the-park look anyway, despite claims that they're trying to avoid that.
 
Cars zip by on Hurontario at 60, 70, or 80 klicks. Who would want to sit back on a bench beside that?

Suburban areas rarely become urban areas in one fell swoop, it's usually by degrees over time. Getting the Hurontario LRT built will be the best chance to change up the street. Anything less transformative won't make much of a dent, so until then, don't hold your breath.

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Yes exactly. I would not want to sit on a patio or a bench if there even was one in this spot.

Also, the new urban is not the same as the old urban when it comes to building cities. Look at any newer built urban form, and you'll see it's different. Dubai anyone? Also, places don't become urban overnight. It's going to take at least 50 more years for the City Centre to turn into anything that resembles a downtown, but it's going in that direction. Don't forget though, this is a Conservatory Group build, so...
 
Yes it takes time but you still have to build properly to ensure at some point it will work. I don't think anyone is going to be sitting in front of Absolute Towers anytime soon but at least the buildings are designed to front the street quite well. This one is another matter.
 
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officedweller said:
Is that section of Hurontario getting LRT?

Jasonzed said:
The first new Widesuites retail is a hair salon. I would like to see a coffee shop go in here...
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If so, then the sidewalk will likely be relocated to the inside of the line of trees (closer to the stores) and the current sidewalk space will be replaced with a lane of traffic so the LRT tracks can be built in the middle of the roadway.
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