Dialogues, ruminations and mysteries

Recently, as a result of finding bundles and bundles of the Stoney Creek News advertising in a rubbish bin on King Street and standing there for a few minutes taking photographs, I ended up having an extended conversation with a local businessperson.

As befitting the unusual start, we talked frankly about how we saw 'the Downtown issue', development...and the dreaded bugaboo of parking.

I'll admit up front that we were on opposite sides of the ideological fence. While they believe that until there's a resolution about parking, there will be no influx of investment, no new businesses, nuthin'...I think that not only that this issue is a red herring, that those who believe 'The sky is falling! The sky is falling!' have decided to create an 'Us vs Them', 'Persecutor and Persecuted' scenario that the public has latched onto (after they've been fed it by the News), that there's misinformation out there aplenty to fuel the paranoia, that so many people don't really understand the variables and the identifiable elements of a downtown's success-

Anyway.

I was struck by what they seemed to think was maybe the 'best' answer to the problem:

The City building a multi-story parking garage where Municipal Lot #3 is.

"It would only cost a few million," they explained. (Perhaps a more accurate figure was mentioned; I honestly don't remember.)

"So you're telling me that it's ridiculous to expect someone to purchase a piece of land for three-quarters of a million dollars and turn it into a parking lot...but you think it's OK for the government to spend several million to correct a problem that should have been dealt with years ago...?"

Some more conversation ensued, making me realize just how entrenched this mindset about both 'free parking' and 'enough parking' was.

Above my head, a thought-bubble: 'There's conflation for ya...'

I got to thinking about the idea of building a parking garage in Lot #3. Now, putting aside the fact that there is no way that it would be rated at 'a buck and hour'...which of course would be a shocker to 'locals', maybe a deal-breaker in itself...it would seem to make sense to go down as much as go up. You know; two stories down and two stories up. Therefore, there wouldn't be as much of a 'height' issue.

Of course, I believe that one of the notions bandied about by my conversation-buddy was that the garage be multi-purpose. Some retail, some professional units mixed in with the actual parking. Like maybe this one, featuring dividable retail space on the ground level, parking garage at the 1st, 2nd and 3rd floor and offices at the fourth and fifth floors:

As featured on this builder and designer's website.

Of course, the problem with this particular design is that in order for this to work organically, you'd really, really need to have King Street in place...otherwise you'd be taking a bass-ackwards approach, sucking business off the main strip and who knows what the result would be with all this development behind an under-potentialized King Street?

I'll admit: every time I walk 'downtown', I feel a bunch of emotions. Frustration, sadness, anger. So many possibilities...so much carping...so little infusion of energy.

Of course, then there's mysteries such as this:

What's with the fence...?