I was speaking with our lawyer in Park City this week, and he commented to me that he wouldn't be going into the office next week because Old Town would be too hectic with the Sundance Film Festival going on. His office is right on Main Street.
When small mountain towns host major international events, there are going to be spillover effects. This is true of Sundance in Park City (population ~8,500) and it is true of the World Economic Forum, which was hosted in Davos (population ~10,000) this past week.
Perhaps the most obvious impact is that people can rent out their homes for large sums of money. And so lots of people both do that and try to profit maximize while doing it. Here are some anecdotes from Davos (via NZZ):
Ten days before the WEF, there are still 25 listings on the Airbnb internet platform. The prices here range from 8,000 to 56,000 Swiss francs. The son of an apartment owner says that his family receives 12,000 francs a week for their three-room apartment, which is quite close to the convention center. However, he says he assumes that they could achieve significantly more. The family rents out the apartment through an intermediary.
Another interesting impact in Davos happens on the retail side (also via NZZ):
According to expert Robert Weinert, the average rent per square meter of retail space in Davos is 248 Swiss francs. A businessperson renting a storefront of 80 square meters must therefore pay almost 20,000 francs in rent per year. However, if that business vacates the store during the WEF, it can earn 60,000 francs – three times the annual rent for the facilities.
What this means is that some retail spaces remain vacant all year, just so that they can be available for when the WEF arrives and people need temporary commercial spaces. And why wouldn't this be the case: 20,000 francs for the year or 60,000 francs for a week. If I'm the landlord, I'll take the additional 40,000 francs and not think about the property for the rest of the year.
Of course, if you're trying to create a vibrant community with things, like, occupied retail spaces, then this isn't ideal.
Let's resume looking at sidewalks and public spaces.
If you look in the City of Toronto's Official Plan for the stretch of Dundas Street West that runs between Dupont Street and Bloor Street West, you'll find a map that looks like this:
I had a discussion with a friend of mine over the weekend about what it takes to masterplan a successful retail main street. We talked about street networks, storefront sizes, the impact of Toronto's PATH on ground level experiences, and a bunch of other things. Ultimately, we both agreed that this is really not an easy feat to accomplish. More often than not, we screw it up. Many of the most cherished retail spines in this city rely on buildings that were primarily built during a different era. They're old stock.
Some people responded by saying it doesn't exist. Hmm. Is our track record that bad? Let's dig a bit deeper and expand the scope of this question. What are some of the best retail streets around the world that comprise of buildings that were all or mostly built in the last 50 years? I would love to hear from you. Please leave any responses and/or thoughts in the comment section below. I plan to look at this topic in more detail and share specific examples in the coming weeks.
Red signifies "Mixed Use." And so if you were to just look at this map, you might naturally assume that, in the real world, this is a continuous main street that connects The Junction neighborhood down to Bloor. But that's not actually the case. Instead, it looks like this:
Because of the rail corridor on the east side, it is a single-sided street. And generally speaking, these don't make for the best retail streets. But it also has narrow sidewalks and a compromised public realm. If you go back to the map I shared yesterday, you get this:
I don't think 30cm is entirely accurate here, but that's beside the point. What matters is that this is just one of many examples in the city of a discontinuous public realm. (Here's another, undignified example, from Parkside Drive.)
Over the years, there have been a number of design concepts proposed. Below is one by Brown + Storey Architects that was done I don't know how many years ago. Their proposal widened the sidewalks along this stretch, and added bike lanes. They also proposed a roundabout at the intersection of Dundas, Dupont, and Annette, which is another matter that needs addressing.
But none of this has been implemented and I don't know of any plans to do it. When we were going through the rezoning process for Junction House, we were made aware of some transportation studies that had been done for the above intersection. But that's about it. There wasn't an actual ETA.
However, now that my commute consists of walking up and down this part of Dundas, I've been thinking more about how it could be improved.
I think there's no question that the sidewalks need to be widened. It would also be helpful if there were crosswalks to facilitate getting off the south end of this exotic island:
But equally important, I think that something should be done about the single-sided nature of the street. Given that there's limited width, my mind immediately goes to shipping containers, or something similar, to start activating the east side of the street.
This has already been done further south on Dundas (east of Bathurst):
And it could work here too. Already there's a Blondie's Pizza anchoring the south end of this stretch (really fantastic pizza, by the way):
But I would love to hear your ideas, as I'm currently in the market. I also don't think that you necessarily need to be from Toronto in order to comment. Great streets are great streets. So if it were up to you, what would you change, if anything, about this part of Dundas Street West? Let me know in the comment section below.
