Why more coffee is never a bad thing

I had a pleasant surprise this morning. A new Little Red Roaster had just opened its doors in the Renaissance building on King Street. That's the massive new apartment building that's changed the London skyline and promises to do it again with a twin building going up beside it. It's also on my way to just about everywhere.

Though I try to be loyal to Hasbeans, the micro-roaster in the Covent Garden Market whose lively staff never fail to brighten my morning, I couldn't be happier about the new coffee shop in the neighbourhood. It's steps from my door and has a fireplace and couches that promise a quiet spot to read or to chat with friends.

More importantly though, downtown can never have enough fun places to visit at street level. Hopefully the Roaster will inspire more building owners and developers to incorporate retail and food on the ground floor of office and apartment buildings. It also means that the chances of another little shop or two in the Renaissance, and in its soon-to-arrive sister building on York Street, are good. If King Street renewal continues to creep its way westward I will indeed be a happy -- and well-caffeinated -- camper.

New night spots on Talbot

The spot on Talbot that was once home to the sex shop Libido has a new occupant. Renovations are still going on at what will become the Kantina Cafe & Restaurant. Next door to it on the block between King and York streets, signs promise the opening of one Nite Owl Upscale Rock Lounge. I noticed both this week and am delighted to see new businesses opening in my neighbourhood. 

Proceeding on foot

Kate Dubinski's column in yesterday's London Free Press made some good points about how the city isn't laid out for people on foot.

"Our cities are not walkable," she writes. "Ever tried to get from Masonville Place to the Great Canadian Bagel across the street? It's an urban hike that involves a lot of dodging of cars in mammoth parking lots -- it's easier to drive. With the exception of downtown London, there are a lot of places like this."

As a non-driver, I've often felt this way. Big strip malls and plazas are build with parking lots coming right off the street so that pedestrians must trek through a maze of cars before reaching a shop. That kind of set-up makes the street scape unappealing too. Why not build the shops directly off the sidewalk with a parking lot behind and entrances from either direction?

It's great to see downtown held up as the example for something, but there are a couple of spots in the core that aren't foot traffic friendly either. The intersections of Ridout/Queens and Wellington/York are particularly hard to navigate on foot. They are large with long lights and often won't display a walk signal unless you've pressed the button at exactly the right time. Reprogramming those lights would go a long way towards helping people get around downtown. 

Hidden Gems in the Core

Some of London's most interesting graffiti can be found in the alleys inside the block  of Richmond/King/Clarence/York Streets.

Not only is it far more attractive than the plain old tagging you often find elsewhere, some of it shows actual London pride. 

Can't says I've seen another graffiti artist quote John Graves Simcoe, for example. 

Most of the graffiti on that block has a Christian theme to it. Here's Moses coming down from Mount Sinai with the 10 Commandments, for example. 

There are also elaborate tags of the name Jesus and specific passages from the Bible. 

The artist included a website in a couple of spots  for an international group calling themselves Gospel Graffiti, apparently affiliated with Billy Graham's ministry. 

Downtown vision planning meeting

I spent yesterday evening at Museum London brainstorming the downtown's strengths and weaknesses and possible future projects. The meeting was one of the first steps toward creating a Downtown Master Plan, to be completed next April. 

Some of the ideas that came out of the meeting were the same things downtown residents and workers have been clamoring for for quite some time: a grocery store in the core, for example. I know one of those would make my life easier. 

I also heard a lot of calls for a pedestrian-only strip on Dundas, which I'm not so sure about. I'm all for making downtown more pedestrian-friendly, but businesses depend on lots of traffic (foot and vehicle) going by, so I'm not sure cutting down on certain kinds would be wise. I think slowing down traffic through the core while giving priority to transit might work better. People would be more inclined to take a bus downtown and stroll around if driving was still possible but a bit frustrating. 

Some exciting new ideas came out of the evening as well. Someone suggested a ferris wheel at the Forks of the Thames. A bit much like the other London perhaps, but just think of the view you would have from it. I'd also like to see one evening a week, a Thursday or Friday, when all the downtown businesses agreed to be open late. There's not much open past six at the moment. If people knew that all the shops were open a certain night, they'd be more inclined to come down to shop after work or after dinner. 

I'm both interested and nervous to see what the planners and council take out of the brainstorming session. It was a bit hard to tell what the consensus was, since all the groups read their ideas off giant chart paper, skipping ideas that had already been floated. use of some tech, a real-time sense of which ideas excited people the most would have been cool. A Wordle, perhaps.

According to the timeline city workers handed out, the process will also include laying out framework and guidelines for urban design and the hiring of a consultant to study a possible downtown heritage conservation district. I'll be following the process all the way through, attending the three more public meetings that are planned. 

I come from downtown, born and ready for you

One of the things I love most about my King Street apartment is the cozy, sheltered view it gives me of some of London's best summer festivals. I had friends over to watch Canada Day fireworks from my balcony while others on the street had to wait in the rain. And last night, the Tragically Hip serenaded us from Harris Park. I couldn't quite make out tiny Gord on the stage below, but I could hear every word.

It took a little while for London to grow on me after moving here from Toronto, but it's home now -- a home I want to celebrate, as well as pick on once in a while. In future posts I plan to examine what's going right and wrong in downtown London and see what kind of collective wisdom Londoners can generate about how to run a city like this one. There's lots of research and scholarship these days on the economies and urban development of metropolises like Toronto, but a lot more of Canada is made up of mid-sized cities like this one. Time to do a little research of our own.

Thanks for reading!