Downtown Toronto DEAD Mall | Shops at Aura Walk
- Thread starter canada-man
- Start date
Turn it into Amsterdam-like Red Light District.
That mall was dead well before Covid. Looks pretty much the same the last time I walked through in 2016.
Here is a link to a story done in 2015 on this ghost town of a mall. https://www.blogto.com/fashion_style/2015/11/is_the_shops_at_aura_torontos_worst_mall/
Here is a link to a story done in 2015 on this ghost town of a mall. https://www.blogto.com/fashion_style/2015/11/is_the_shops_at_aura_torontos_worst_mall/
Not sure if you can open all of this pay-walled link, but the headline alone paints the picture in the extreme:
www.nytimes.com
Westfield Gives Up San Francisco Mall, Signaling More Pain Ahead (Published 2023)
Retailers have been fleeing the city’s downtown, and some analysts say there may be more to come. It’s an issue facing various downtowns around the United States.
I have to disagree. As an owner of a courier company in Toronto for 30 years (now retired). As I drive around the city and outskirts often going to golf courses, I have never seen so much more congestion now than ever in the past. Reason, road and building construction that is taking much longer than it should, such as Metro lynx and the deletion of vehicle lanes in favour of bike lanes, (anyone use Danforth avenue from Broadview to Victoria Park now a single lane? Woodbine avenue?) I am not opposed to bike lanes but not by reducing vehicle lanes. I challenge anyone who lives in the Oshawa area who has to commute west to anywhere up to Mississauga tell me it is not a nightmare drive. Driving downtown is also brutal. Thank God I sold my business when I did. LOL.
You walk all that distance and don't see one friendly police or security officer walking a beat and saying hello. On those sidewalks where vision is blocked by opaque construction fences and barricades are where you can run into "the man with a knife or gun." Those malls are full of stores that can feed off foot traffic if it is there but never a destination like a post office that actually draws people. You need off duty police officers on electric Cushman type little 4 wheel vehicles so people feel safe. Follies like expensive parking, aggressive red light tickets, forced right turns, and broad 4 lane streets turned into jammed up 2 lanes with concrete planters and bike paths convince people to avoid downtown.
People recently have been arrested outside my favorite downtown hotel and Bloor St condo building with guns and knives. Assaults seem to be about once every two weeks. For decades I enjoyed walking Toronto sidewalks in search of new sights and experiences - especially at Christmas time. The last few trips I did not walk to or spend a dime in any downtown bars and restaurants. Many escorts do not even want to travel in downtown. They want you to traverse the sidewalks and come to them.
So you think the hell with it. I can just stay in Markham for less money and drive around. See a few ladies and go home. How boring. Downtown Toronto has fallen below stall speed. Even the currency exchanges are a rip off downtown. Maybe try Montreal.
This is like a great romance gone bad but you are unable to break it off.
People recently have been arrested outside my favorite downtown hotel and Bloor St condo building with guns and knives. Assaults seem to be about once every two weeks. For decades I enjoyed walking Toronto sidewalks in search of new sights and experiences - especially at Christmas time. The last few trips I did not walk to or spend a dime in any downtown bars and restaurants. Many escorts do not even want to travel in downtown. They want you to traverse the sidewalks and come to them.
So you think the hell with it. I can just stay in Markham for less money and drive around. See a few ladies and go home. How boring. Downtown Toronto has fallen below stall speed. Even the currency exchanges are a rip off downtown. Maybe try Montreal.
This is like a great romance gone bad but you are unable to break it off.
Traffic in Markham, Thornhill is even worse than in Woodbridge.
Getting to downtown has become a major hassle due to the Eglinton LRT boondoggle. It's gotten worse since the Premiere Douglas government took power, every weekend you get shuttle buses, no direct subway from Vaughan Metropolitan to Spadina. Not to hard to figure out, Caroline Mulroney is the Transport Minister. I won't even go into the escapades of her father.
Turning the Aura Walk into a Red Light District wont fly. The condos above are still at $ 800,000.00 minimum, the recent slowdown didn't impact it much. The Aura Walk got the kiss of death by not being connected to The Path.
Getting to downtown has become a major hassle due to the Eglinton LRT boondoggle. It's gotten worse since the Premiere Douglas government took power, every weekend you get shuttle buses, no direct subway from Vaughan Metropolitan to Spadina. Not to hard to figure out, Caroline Mulroney is the Transport Minister. I won't even go into the escapades of her father.
Turning the Aura Walk into a Red Light District wont fly. The condos above are still at $ 800,000.00 minimum, the recent slowdown didn't impact it much. The Aura Walk got the kiss of death by not being connected to The Path.
Yep. But I am more on the side of, it’s the combination of infrastructure and lack of and population growth. You can go back to around the 1990s, and historically the gta gets about 70% of all immigrants. Not to mention people leaving the Maritimes, Northern Ont, central Ont, rural Ont ( especially with losses in manufacturing) now the West too and heading to the GTA, looking for work.
I spent a lot of years in the core, so am all too familiar with traffic and gridlock. Recently, was at University/Dundas area mid day. Took over an hour to get to the DVP north. And that’s with many towers being largely empty. Not sure it will ever come back. A lot of firms are paying big money to lease floor space. As leases come up for renewal, I suspect they will let some go. For now they are “forcing” employees to start trickling back 2-3 days a week.
re infrastructure.
that takes $$, something neither the province or city have. Thanks largely to voters in the GTA. Those that still live in the city gripe about gridlock….and their land taxes/taxes.
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You forgot the Chinese, Africans and other groups from around the world.
Why the increase in the next 36 months ? Any government publication on this subject ?
Is your statement fact or fiction ??
He is throwing red meat to the wild dogs.
Maybe he will respond to both our questions if he has any backup to his claim.
It’s true.
for the past 20 years or so. Immigration numbers to Canada were at and around 200,000/year.
last year JT raised that to 500,000/per year.
people can argue all they want about about the specific per year number “right/wrong”. Just know this.
we as a country are aging. Birth rates down/longevity up. When CPP was first introduced ( 1950s I think) the average life expectancy post retirement was 12 years. Today it’s over 20 years for both M and F. And I seem to recall the average age for Canadians was two years ago, had creeped above 45.
with sooooo Boomers retiring that’s going to have a lot of “ripples”. To GDP and labour markets, to tax revenue, to cost for healthcare, LTCs, social services.
and like any pyramid scheme. What happens if the base collapses? Meaning we as a country need immigration.
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Yuh. Driving in from Durham yesterday.... Gardiner - blocked for construction. And that blocked Lakeshore as well, since no one get get up onto the Gardiner. Richmond blocked for construction. Queen closed. You can't drive along King any more. College blocked by construction in at least 2 places. It's completely fucked. Work on 1 major east-west artery at a time, please!!!!
And Yonge is also now a single lane. WTF!!!???!!!???!!!???!!!???
“But”
All that construction as construction workers take loans for trucks, buy ATVs, go to restaurants buy clothes and tools, see SPs, who in turn do the same, creating jobs, spreads wealth/income, increases tax revenue. Take just the 401 and commerce. It is the busiest highway in North America.
not sure what you do for a living.
but you “can’t have your cake and eat it to”…
is it brutal?
Yep. To me anyways, the problem is brain dead politicians that over the past 30 years allowed jobs to disappear everywhere else, while pouring $$ into the GTA for votes.
“If you build it, they will come”
are you willing to have your land taxes hiked quite a bit instead?
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When you remove one car lane on each side of Bloor St for concrete flower pots and bike lanes you need a massive reduction of cars to offset that. Pedestrians on sidewalks are less likely to be seen by slowly passing cars.
The stretch of sidewalk under the Hudson's Bay letters where there are no doors or store windows is a site of regular assaults on walkers. There was a recent report of a man with a weapon in front of Hemingway's at 5:09 PM - prime dinner time.
I loved to walk from the financial district down to the Harbourfront. Assaults and robberies are frequent at Lakeshore and those north south sidewalks. What you will never see is a policeman until a crime is actually committed. The police are busy watching for cars on King St that fail to turn right after each block. That idiot rule removed King St as a good route into that part of downtown. Hello gridlock. Goodbye tourists and financial office workers. Note the once thriving business failures on King St.
The stretch of sidewalk under the Hudson's Bay letters where there are no doors or store windows is a site of regular assaults on walkers. There was a recent report of a man with a weapon in front of Hemingway's at 5:09 PM - prime dinner time.
I loved to walk from the financial district down to the Harbourfront. Assaults and robberies are frequent at Lakeshore and those north south sidewalks. What you will never see is a policeman until a crime is actually committed. The police are busy watching for cars on King St that fail to turn right after each block. That idiot rule removed King St as a good route into that part of downtown. Hello gridlock. Goodbye tourists and financial office workers. Note the once thriving business failures on King St.
