06/29/2018
CIVIC CENTRE
DOWNTOWN SUDBURY
CIVIC CENTRE INCLUDING: TOM DAVIS SQUARE (GOVERNMENT), MEMORIAL PARK OPEN SPACE/RECREATION), AND THE “JUNCTION” ON HERITAGE SQUARE/PLACE DU PARTRIMOINE ( ARTS AND CULTURE)
The original concept for amalgamation as a new city of Greater Sudbury was to recognize Sudbury Basin’s Sudbury’s historical settlements as a constellation of units, “a community of communities”. Revisiting this notion of a constellation may be an opportunity to redefine the way the city is view and reduce the tendency to pit urban versus suburban which perpetuates a negative attitude toward the downtown. Replacing the status quo with the idea of a cluster of complementary village/neighborhoods centered on a common downtown may be an idea whose time has come.
The planner’s term of CBD or central business district generally applies to the downtown but as the name central business district implies that while it maybe central, it need not be the only centre. The concept is for a transformation of the mono-centric city into a multi-centered “Greater” Sudbury. It’s an appealing notion to have a geographically sprawling Greater Sudbury becoming a cluster of village /neighborhoods in which the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. (Think of Toronto’s many varied neighbourhoods.)
It’s an idea that allows for village units to be densified for a “20 minute neighborhood”. That is village/neighbourhood units in which every home is within minutes of travel time of jobs, shops, cafes, schools, parks and community facilities.
Village /neighbourhoods where people can celebrate their own unique identity and “work closer to where they live”, a place where walking, biking, the public transit would be the preferred means of transportation, and motorized vehicles used on rare occasions.
Such an idea of a multi-centered city however would require an attractive and efficiently run public transit system linking the network of densified, self-sufficient transit centered village /neighbourhoods to each other and to the central downtown. The village/neighbourhoods area for walkablity would approximate the geographical area of a mile square township concession and encouraged to be clearly defined by applying appropriate land–use regulations and municipal tax policies.
The city envisioned as a constellation would have its urban areas as a ‘string of pearls” large and small, within the context of an overall open space or rural land in agriculture or as wood-lots and forest for a “city within a park”.
It’s an idea that’s in tune with the “New Economy” the engine of which is knowledge. Workers, in the knowledge economy are often called the “creative class”, are generally young, highly educated, and mobile. They are typically employed in occupations that add value through knowledge and creativity such as writers, artists, educators.
A constellation city would have suburbanites out of their cars enjoying environmental benefits, better health outcomes, improved local amenity, and stronger local communities and reduced traffic congestion all qualities associated with the “New Economy” and the sensibilities of the twenty-first century. It’s an idea right for the times.
With last year’s sesquicentennial it’s also a timely opportunity to pay homage to our past and the role that the downtown has played over the years in Sudbury’s history.
Imagine the possibilities of re-purposing the CPR (VIA) Station as a Museum of the Downtown that highlights the lives and events that make up our story as a community. The CPR Station a legacy of Reeve Stephen Fournier, Sudbury’s first elected head of council, who at the first meeting with the newly elected council in 1893 adopted a resolution “getting after” the CPR for a new station. It was realized 13 years later in 1906.
Together with the Sudbury Arena, a legacy of Mayor Bill Beaton built in 1951, re-purposed as Sudbury’s cultural/arts hub with the proposed central library, concert hall and an addition of an art gallery facing the constant light of the north overlooking Memorial Park
This could be complemented with a new arena for larger sports, convention and entertainment events and a parking garage to server the whole pedestrian precinct.
These important city markers could be clustered as a proposed Heritage Square/Place du Patrimonies as a sun pocket facing south that would include the Farmer’s Market. And connected to the Sudbury Theatre Centre beside a possible Seniors / Folk Arts Centre on Shaughnessy Street.
All of which becomes a grand overall pedestrian precinct with Heritage Square/Place du Patrimonies within walking distance of the Sudbury Transit Centre. True to downtown as a walkable neighbourhood, the ”Civic Centre” would be pedestrian accessible, via public transit, from all parts of Greater Sudbury as a Community of Communities.
Just imagine, yes it’s all possible, it can happen. It just needs the combined efforts and support of City Council, the Chamber of Commerce, the Downtown BIA, the Downtown Village Development
