Raise the Hammer

The Jackson LCBO was the relocated version of the Bay/York LCBO, which also sucked. Dundurn will be unassailable because of the income of the surrounding neighbourhood, but with the recent arrival of the 12,100 square foot LCBO store (the area's second largest, second only in size to the Ancaster outlet, it's twice as big as the old Stadium Mall store and contains a Vintages section about the size of the JS store) I wouldn't hold out much hope for a phenomenal LCBO reinvention in JS. After all, those 23,400 higher-than-average income workers tend not to live downtown, so their local may in fact be Dundurn or Dundas or the Meadowlands. Adding good-paying jobs to the core is great (though 2,700 net increase in the last decade is less than half the growth rate the city needs to hit its density targets), but if only a fraction of those who work downtown live downtown, the chicken omelette is still missing some ingredients. And going by yesterday's Spec article (a mistake, I know), the city seems to be using the combined jobs+residents figure as its yardstick -- so they could hit a density target and still have 3/4 of workers evacuating the core when the whistle blows. Note the evasive conjunction:

"The city's official plan, based on provincial urban growth targets, has set a goal of 250 residents and jobs per downtown hectare by 2031. But the city needs to add about 12,000 people living *or* working downtown over the next 20 years to meet the target and will fall short if it doesn't increase the rate of growth of about 300 per year over the last decade."

http://www.thespec.com/news/business/article/475520--downtown-is-a-happenin-place


Back to the market, anyone know who the maroon is who raggedly painted the lower half of one of the easternmost columns red? Looks kind of odd tarted up like that.