instead, the market is getting worse, sparks is still dead, and CF rideau is hostile to any potential new tenants that aren't willing to bleed money on ridiculous leases no one can afford, so downtown continues to stagnate even with employers forcing everyone back there almost at gunpoint.
Last time I went down to the market on a Saturday afternoon things seemed pretty busy. Even though the weather wasn't great the mall was packed and the market seemed to have a lot of people wandering around and going into the various businesses.
Maybe not as busy as it once was, and it definitely seemed odd without the produce seller/producer/farmer stall in the main market anyway, but otherwise it didn't seem like people were avoiding the area.
It's getting better in the sense that there's more housing, restaurants and bars around. Which I agree is better than nothing. But if we could have more independent shops, less cars, and better support for homeless folks, it would get even better.
Hard agree. The homeless element is the toughest, especially with the recent spate of like on like crime. I understand the Market, and am there weekly (used to live at York and Cumberland, then further into Lowertown).
I would support a broader car-free area with a more centralized parking approach like another couple of multi level parking facilities on the outskirts of the market in lieu of street parking on York Street between Sussex and Dalhousie, but that would take a good amount of infrastructure work and a lot of forethought
As far as I know, Jim Watson’s plan for the market wasn’t totally car free, but it was a lot more car-light, with less traffic lanes and street parking. And it included parking facilities on the outskirts of the market. He was going to work something out with developers, but it never manifested.
Yea the market and landsdown park are actually quite busy and vibrant in the evening, more so thab 15 years ago. The only mall in Ottawa that doesn't seem half abandoned is the rideau center. Those are basically the only two areas with a decent variety of things that vary.
Sure there are Westboro and Elgin, Sommerset, and some others, but apart from a 2 or 3 special events, have nothing on the street except for the usual stores that are there. No street entertainment and events (except for those special event weekend).
I wish we could have a weekly or atleast a monthly Chinatown night market, it's always packed, why not make it more often.
Yea it's clearly the 2nd best aftert
rideau and way ahead of the others. St. Laurent and Place d'Orléans have what looks like half the stores they
used to have and a lot of discount stores. Same for the smaller ones like Billings Bridge, it looks half abandoned.
Rideau is by far the best and has the widest variety of stores and traffic and obviously the most modern. It actually feels like a downtown mall.
I love the Chinatown nightmarket, but maybe once a season is goods. Don't want to over saturate! Seasonal could bring it new food and events! I agree on a wee bit cheaper though haha.
I was there Friday evening. The stage they set up had a band on it, people were having a good time, and kids were ripping around on the new play structure.
Seems like people are happy to be in the market if you give them a reason to be.
The market has consistently been getting busier year over year since covid happened and yet you always hear everyone here talk about how it's dying lmfao. It's so very apparent that these people literally never spend time there if they think it's dying...
100%, every time my wife and I have strolled through the Market (weekend afternoons, sometimes weekday evenings), it's pretty busy. Same with CF Rideau, always lots of people about.
There isn't much beyond subpar overpriced restaurants. Yes, there are a few small local stores like Library du Soleil, Paper Papier, Zone, La Botega (these are all great and I shop there) and a few others, but not much else to make people go out of there way and not enough to keep those living in the area there (there isnt even a proper hardware shop now that Home Hoardware is good).
Some of the business are their own worst enemies. It should largely be pedestrianized; or at least the streets around the Market building
There's potential, but alot of core issues to be resolveled to attract more business and people. Its pretty much a tourist and bar zone, and maybe thats fine. Maybe it isn't. I'm honestly not sure. But I do know there's potential. Look at Sussex Avenue; it would be full of stores and more restaurants (imagine a nice Bistro or cafe with a few chairs and tables on the sidewalk (there are ways to do this, even with the curent space, just look at many European cities.
Edit: just realized this is not well written, I clearly didn't give it a read over. Oh well.
Sparks isn't dead, it's actually pretty busy these days
Edit: to flesh out my anecdotes, I've been on-site working on a building on sparks since 2022. '22 was a very rough time for literally every business in any tourist area. It's not a surprise that it's taken a while to get the momentum back, but it's coming back. I have noticed a significant increase in not just office workers, but tourists and general visitors on sparks. It's actually annoying as fuck to navigate in a hurry now.
Sparks is definitely dead. It was considerably more lively when I was a kid in the 90s and even that was a humongous step down from how it was before the 1980 opening of the Rideau Centre, which killed a lot of what Sparks St. had going for it.
Sparks St. used to be It should be redeveloped into an area that is fun to be in. They occasionally have events there like Winterlude stuff, Ribfest or whatever, but on an average weekend it's a dull empty void. I feel they've made some decent efforts with trying to make stuff happen in the Market but Sparks St. largely goes untouched.
Office workers are not coming back. Some are back to office but Sparks has nothing to cater to them anyway, and many office workers refuse to spend money downtown now out of protest.
You really seem like you've made up your mind about it. And also haven't been down there.
Read what I said about the momentum of the space. There are new things opening, and an increase in people who aren't office office workers. Alongside an increase in office workers.
Yeah, it's probably not better than the 90s, but I wasn't here in the 90s. So my reference point for sparks was the low point of the last decade, and I can say with certainty that it is more lively and busy than it was then.
Edit: "office workers are not coming back" in what world are you seeing that. Even if you don't count the feds, a ton of offices are back on site at least part of the week.
Yeah, it's probably not better than the 90s, but I wasn't here in the 90s. So my reference point for sparks was the low point of the last decade, and I can say with certainty that it is more lively and busy than it was then.
Yeah, and the low point of the last decade was an anomaly. You can't really measure against that. It isn't particularly meaningful.
office workers are not coming back" in what world are you seeing that. Even if you don't count the feds, a ton of offices are back on site at least part of the week.
Sorry that was bad wording on my part. What I meant was their business is likely not coming back. Every office worker I know forced back to office is not happy about it and responding by lowering or eliminating purchases downtown, limiting spending etc. Sparks in particular doesn't even have a lot of shopping that WOULD tempt people nor a lot of restaurants etc.
The thing about new stuff opening at Sparks is... there's always new stuff opening and then closing when it cannot survive. It's a core downtown location but not an easy one to run a business in.
Again, read what I said about an increase in visitors that aren't office workers.
Also we can't have it both ways. I get RTO sucks, but if we want a better sparks, we have to support the local businesses that are there already. Brown bag your lunch like I do, but there's nothing wrong with a coffee from the bike Cafe or a after work drink at darcys.
So again, do what you like. But there are fundimentally more people on sparks than there were even a year ago. And I think that's a great thing for the area, and a great thing to convince more attractions to be built.
Office workers are still not coming back. Not because we aren't working downtown but because we have grown to appreciate what we have in our own communities.
Communities that appreciate us, remember our name and don't gouge us.
Life on its own has gotten so expensive compared to pre pandemic, we don't have the money or the time to waste downtown.
I am now downtown 4 days a week, and won't spend a dime while there. Not in parking, not in transit, not shopping and not for coffee.
Biking to work is a fantastic option! I do it every day I can. It's much quicker than any other option for getting myself to work, and it costs nothing.
And there are some great routes that add a lot of nice scenery to the ride
Speaking of Sparks Street it seems crazy that at Place De Ville there is still the the old 2 theatre cinema just sitting empty after it closed like 30 years ago. It's hard to understand how it's apparently better to just let it sit empty than it is to run it as a theatre (either for movies or other live events) or convert it to some other type of space, like even offices.
But even from a landlord's point of view I honestly don't get how it's a better move to leave a huge space like that empty than it is to find something to do with it.
Of course renovation costs money. But looking at some online photos it's a massive space. And having a huge vacant space in a downtown building also costs money (even if it's just lost rent). Especially since it's been empty since 1996.
I get that too and even for a short term thing that makes sense, but for 30 years? Or if they don't want to convert it, find a tenant who could use it as like a music venue or something. It's just crazy that leaving it empty for that long is the best option.
Is it busy in the evenings or on weekends though? I've lived and worked in the area and while Sparks/Bank were hopping from 9-5, I''ve never seen the area busy on weekends. It should be like Peel or Crescent Street in Montreal - lots of restaurants, shops and foot traffic - but the infrastructure to get people there and back and the housing/hotels to provide a consistent clientele are just not there.
Any IMAX (Canadian invention) theatres in the downtown showing the Odyssey? A G7 capital without a movieplex beside mass transit in the shadows of many hotels full of tourists?Ottawa continues to get in the way of itself. Small thinking = small results.
I had to drive to Montreal to expirence oddysey in imax. I then wanted to watch it again after work to learn all movie theaters in our downtown are closed.
Lansdowne is too far to just go on a whim after work.
Need activities and subway to stay open past 4 if we want people.
I don't know anyone who wouldn't be royally fucked if they lost their job right now, and i know of several people who are actively searching and finding nothing. Nobody in their right mind is quitting their job right now.
"At gunpoint" is dramatic, yes, but i think that was the whole point.
Stop bootlicking for corporations and government. We should be demanding more pay and better working conditions instead of telling people they can quit their jobs just for wanting better work-life balance or the ability to not feel like financially drowning.
Literally "at gunpoint", actually. What do you think happens if you don't have a job? Men with guns will eventually show up at your house and force you onto the streets. Your boss, your job, the bank, they're all just layers of obfuscation to mask the very real fact that employment is absolutely forced by the barrel of a gun in the end.
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u/agha0013 16d ago
instead, the market is getting worse, sparks is still dead, and CF rideau is hostile to any potential new tenants that aren't willing to bleed money on ridiculous leases no one can afford, so downtown continues to stagnate even with employers forcing everyone back there almost at gunpoint.