The problem is that they're kind of deserted when there's nothing happening at the convention centre or skydome.
That's not really true. I live in the area and since myself and my girlfriend are on a fixed income the Front st restaurants are the ones we tend to frequent if we want to go out for a meal. There's a large grey area between desserted and 30 minute wait for a table, and these restaurants all fall in that area, most of which closer to being full than completely empty, at least from my experience.
GEI said:
There's probably more like 20-30,000 people at your average game. And only a very small percentage of those people are coming SOUTH on john street to get to the dome. And the baseball season is only a few months out of the year. And they only play a certain number of games a month. And only half of those games are at home...
...you see where I'm going with this.
Why do people need to be only going south at John? can they not access the restaurant or whatever is there from Front St? I'd say it's far more than a small percentage of people who get to the Dome from Front. It's probably more like 50% with the rest coming from the Skywalk, which itself is only a minute walk from the location. So, on event days you can have anywhere from 15-45,000 people walking by the intersection of Front and John. Wouldn't you kill for a business in that location?
Also, the baseball season is 81 games and goes from April to September (and if we're lucky, which we haven't been lately... October). That's half the year. The other half of the year the Leafs and Raptors are playing just up the road, so it's not like the area isn't busy. If it's a good sports bar like the Harbour Grill it'll be packed just about every night of the week, especially since there doesn't need to be an event going on at the Dome for people to want to come in to make use of the satellite TV's picking up events around the world.
So essentially, in the area you have 41 Raptors games, 41 Leafs Games, 81 Jays games, the city's biggest tourist attraction, a convention centre and some condos in a neighbourhood that is growing rapidly. Sounds pretty good to me.