Council supports group seeking to renovate, expand downtown core
October 29, 2009
By MIKE WHITEHOUSE, THE SUDBURY STAR
It has been 40 years since downtown Sudbury saw a major development and it's time to start thinking big again, say downtown boosters.
City council last night offered support to a group planning to kick start renovating and expanding downtown.
Downtown will soon see several new developments with the potential to reshape it. With a School of Architecture, a planned new Francophone Cultural Centre and a relocated and expanded Art Gallery of Sudbury in the works, more than $50 million worth of projects are planned for the downtown.
And it's no coincidence all have targeted downtown as the place to be, boosters say.
"The health of downtown is crucial to our future economic competitiveness and success," local architect Blaine Nichols told council in launching a community-wide consultation.
Nichols, representing a group forging ahead with the School of Architecture, and Stephane Gauthier, executive director of le Carrefour francophone de Sudbury, hope to bring dozens of groups together to talk about how these projects fit into the future of downtown.
Big changes will be coming, Nichols says. The challenge will be to co-ordinate all these projects so they strengthen each other. His group, Big Ideas, Big Solutions, hopes to draw the community out of its shell to participate in a wide-ranging discussion on the downtown's future.
The last time downtown underwent a facelift of this scale was 40 years ago when the Borgia Street area was razed to make way for some housing and the mall now known as the Rainbow Centre.
While revitalization is an ongoing process, what the downtown is about to experience will rival 40 years ago, Nichols said.
The consultation will begin with a speaker series during the next few months designed to bring people together to talk about issues. The first will be design guru Bruce Mau on Nov. 10. Mau, a Sudbury native, will speak about innovation, creativity and design.
It's hoped these speakers will offer a rallying point for people to become involved in these and other projects. Gauthier says he wants people to come with ideas, big or small.
"We know there are ideas flying around out there," he said. "You never know which ones might take hold."All three of the noted projects are unfunded, except for a $10-million commitment over 10 years from the City of Greater Sudbury for the School of Architecture. As organizers begin making plans and drumming up funds for their projects, they will benefit from being able to point to each other and to downtown as partners, Nichols said.
While, none of the groups has a site for their projects, redeveloping the rail lands downtown has again been raised. Nichols says there's a couple of parcels of land available for development adjacent to the rail lands, so he doesn't see that as an issue.
Gauthier says he's wary that strategic planning projects haven't always drawn widespread support in Sudbury, but suggests this one will be different.
"We know that out of this process, we will have these three projects. They are going to happen no matter what," Gauthier says.