{"id":5515,"date":"2010-07-19T10:30:08","date_gmt":"2010-07-19T13:30:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spacingatlantic.ca\/?p=5515"},"modified":"2013-01-21T04:42:20","modified_gmt":"2013-01-21T08:42:20","slug":"peel-plaza-blues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/atlantic\/2010\/07\/19\/peel-plaza-blues\/","title":{"rendered":"Peel Plaza blues"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone\" title=\"HSBC Building (foreground) and City Hall (background) at the bottom of King St. in Saint John, New Brunswick.\" src=\"http:\/\/farm4.static.flickr.com\/3407\/3586737001_af7d55c138.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"375\" height=\"500\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>SAINT JOHN <\/strong><strong>&#8211; <\/strong>Last<strong> <\/strong>Wednesday evening will prove to be a watershed for uptown development. Common Council\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/telegraphjournal.canadaeast.com\/city\/article\/1135784\">voted<\/a> 8-3 to award a $ 20.6-million tender to build a new police headquarters in the historic city centre district.<\/p>\n<p>What else could bring\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/telegraphjournal.canadaeast.com\/front\/article\/1112819\">people<\/a> back from the suburbs and encourage more\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/canada\/new-brunswick\/story\/2010\/05\/10\/nb-saint-john-halifax-cruise-ships-556.html\">visitors<\/a> to the city?<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.saintjohn.ca\/peelplaza_index.cfm\">Peel Plaza<\/a> (check out the site&#8217;s animated\u00a0videos) is to be home to a provincial court house, police station, public plaza, parking garage and related infrastructure \u2014 a joint project by the City and Province. The consulting and planning fees coupled with land acquisition costs are estimated at $9 million, and with the exception of the courthouse, all other structures are the financial responsibility of the City.\u00a0Council has split the project up in increments, so the true cost won&#8217;t be realized for years (with a\u00a0projected cost of ~$40-50 million).<\/p>\n<p>The City Manager&#8217;s\u00a0report\u00a0[<a href=\"http:\/\/www.saintjohn.ca\/documents\/July14CM_Councilreport.pdf\">pdf<\/a>] is worth reading for a detailed look at the City&#8217;s position on the Peel Plaza development.<\/p>\n<p>While the debate for a new Police HQ has been ongoing for decades, does the development purport to do what it&#8217;s set out to?<\/p>\n<p>The argument here rests with a) whether this will actually lead to better policing in the city; b)\u00a0whether the new development conforms to the urban fabric and streetscape of the area; c) whether this triggers additional private development around the project; d) whether this will increase economic and cultural activity in the area; e) whether the station should be placed at Peel Plaza (it was #9 of 14 evaluated sites); and finally, f) whether the costs associated with the project(s), significantly affect progress on Council&#8217;s stated\u00a0priorities [<a href=\"http:\/\/www.saintjohn.ca\/documents\/Council%20Priorities.pdf\">pdf<\/a>].<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, there&#8217;s an outstanding\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/telegraphjournal.canadaeast.com\/rss\/article\/1107922\">$259 million<\/a> investment coming which is required to build and operate a much needed water treatment plant (the archaic public water system fails to meet most of the current health standards), the\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/canada\/new-brunswick\/story\/2009\/07\/07\/nb-saint-john-harbour-cleanup-547.html\">$100 million<\/a> harbour cleanup project (the only city with untreated sewage running in open creeks through its core), and the estimated\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/telegraphjournal.canadaeast.com\/city\/article\/589898\">$75 million<\/a> for 25% of roads that need to be hastily rebuilt (chronic underfunding will do that).<\/p>\n<p>These are significant challenges and even with the highest tax rate in the province, city resources are limited and stretched thin.<\/p>\n<p>This was a lost opportunity \u2014 perhaps the next water boil advisory will remind council of that.<\/p>\n<p><em>Photograph by <\/em><em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/greghickman\/\">Greg Hickman<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>SAINT JOHN &#8211; Last Wednesday evening will prove to be a watershed for uptown development. Common Council\u00a0voted 8-3 to award a $ 20.6-million tender to build a new police headquarters in the historic city centre district. What else could bring\u00a0people back from the suburbs and encourage more\u00a0visitors to the city?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8020,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[362,341],"tags":[923,2123,373,347,2838,515,1453,391,353,418,5922,416,499],"class_list":["post-5515","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-architecture","category-urban-design","tag-city-manager","tag-common-council","tag-construction","tag-development","tag-greg-hickman","tag-pdf","tag-peel-plaza","tag-public-space","tag-saint-john","tag-smart-growth","tag-urban-design","tag-urbanism","tag-usd"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Peel Plaza blues - Spacing Atlantic<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/atlantic\/2010\/07\/19\/peel-plaza-blues\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Peel Plaza blues - Spacing Atlantic\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"SAINT JOHN &#8211; Last Wednesday evening will prove to be a watershed for uptown development. Common Council\u00a0voted 8-3 to award a $ 20.6-million tender to build a new police headquarters in the historic city centre district. 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