Not a lot of foot traffic in downtown Hamilton, yet.
Actually the number of pedestrians downtown is surprisingly high. Stand in Gore park any time of day and there are always crowds. Not to mention Hess village. The proposed federal building location straddles Hess and Downtown... and with plenty of retail development in the works along that stretch, plus hotel development, those couple of blocks on Main are only going to go "up".
Getting into that building while it's still cheap would be a great move by any retailer ;-)
Here is
a fabulous case for MEC locating in the federal building in downtown Hamilton
A box store needs parking, and suburban Burlington, adjacent to the junction, is already full of big box stores. Makes sense, from this perspective at least.
Yes but MEC is not a big box store. First of all they are non profit, and if we are to take their word, their priorities are, in order: co op members, then the environment, followed by everything else.
Their Toronto store does not have parking. There is a separately managed lot underneath their store that is the same footprint as the store itself. Their Vancouver store has a lot on the roof that is the same footprint as the building. Their Victoria store has no parking... well there are two street parking spots out front. There is more bike parking than car parking at the Victoria store! This is the way its members expect MEC to be run. They do not expect them to plop a green building in the middle of a big box wasteland next to a highway and surrounded by surface parking.
I could go on, but there is already
a convincing argument about the disadvantages of the burlington MEC.
I've said it in other places and I'll say it again: building a green building is only half the "battle". If you put a green building in a location that begs people to drive single occupancy vehicles to get there, you are negating all of your hard work. I challenge anyone here to ride a bike or walk on Brant Street near the QEW -- it's a nightmare. Nothing but high speed maniacal Burlington suburbanites, all flying by the nearby car dealerships, strip malls (and the soon-to-be-walmart) in order to get home asap. This is not pedestrian, transit or cyclist friendly despite the lip service paid out in mec's press release.
Sorry to rant, but the more I think about it, the more this location STINKS!