Capstone: The Business Future of Downtown Windsor

By Aaron Wrotkowski

When the sun goes down, the lights come on.  The streets get packed with young adults hitting up the bars and clubs looking to have a good time.  Some hit bars for karaoke, others to dance.  Every bar is playing its own song.  Soon, the sun comes up and few can be found.

Downtown Windsor is a vampire.

However, those in the business community of downtown Windsor are expecting to see change soon and that change starts with the schools.  St. Clair College has already taken major steps in moving to the downtown core with the Centre for the Arts and the MediaPlex.  Now the University of Windsor plans to move several programs to what used to be the Armoury, Windsor Star building and bus station.

“This is an opportunity to bring certain programs to the downtown core,” said Alan Wildeman, President of the University of Windsor.  “There are certain programs in the Arts and Social Work, programs that speak to the quality of life, the wellbeing of people and the welfare of our community.  Those programs and productions make sense for the students to conduct in the city.”

The University is relocating the programs thanks to the City of Windsor’s capital donation in addition to $10 million in funding, and the provincial government’s contribution of $15 million.  It’s a move that Ward 3 (Downtown Windsor) councillor Fulvio Valentinis is looking forward to.

“It also helps our residential market downtown,” said Valentinis.  “If someone chooses to go to school downtown, they may choose to live here.  The more residents we have downtown the better it is.  Now it’s not someone coming down for an evening but they will be here five, six, seven days a week.”

“All of the great downtowns, the one defining factor is people walking.”

Valentinis said the area is currently in a transition and hoping to attract the retail business that moved out towards the Devonshire Mall and other areas of the city.  The goal, according to Valentinis, is to attract day time traffic to compliment the night time crowd that already comes due to the bars and restaurants.

“I think downtown needs to turn into a university district like in Guelph or Waterloo,” said Abdallah Elsayed, Chairman of Development for the Downtown Windsor Business Improvement Association.  Elsayed used to run a deli downtown called Gabriels but will be re-opening in the same location as Sobritos.  “We have the university coming and St. Clair College is here.  Eventually we will have a retail geared to them.  I think the university kids need to see the big picture and believe in it, like the people in Ann Arbor.”

Valentinis agrees with using Ann Arbor as an example, citing their art festivals as a model for how students and family communities can coexist.

Some businesses have already moved ahead of the curve.  John Ansell and his partner Steven Johnson opened the Squirrel Cage in July of 2012, lured by the attractive real estate prices and the personable area of Maiden Lane, between Ouellette Ave and Pelissier.  For Ansell, he sees a lot of potential growth in the downtown core.

“I think things are improving.  I think it’s changing and the young officials who come in for lunch are all saying the same thing.  There’s a lot of paper that’s coming off a lot of buildings windows due to Sutherland adding 400 new employees for example,” said Ansell.

“I think it’s going to bring more community sense.  With students comes retail.”

Despite a few new businesses popping up on Maiden Lane alone since the arrival of Squirrel Cage, the downtown district is still dominated by bars and nightclubs.  While Valentinis said he hopes to work with the bars to ensure they stay successful, Elsayed proclaimed himself, “anti-bar”.

“There should be no bars on Ouellette,” said Elsayed, who also owns the Monaco’s restaurants located in Windsor.  “Pubs are a different story because they are classier, but a kiddy nightclub has no place on our court, especially if you want to attract businesses like a clothing store or hardware store.”

Elsayed said the problem started when the recession hit and owners were worried that people were not going to come in.  Their solution was to sell cheap beer to attract business but in the opinion of Elsayed, cheap beers attract cheap people.

“You can’t attract (retail business) if you have 19 year olds kids coming drunk and you are in fear of window being broken the next morning.  You can’t tell them to get out but if they can’t clean up their image, it’ll be hard for us to work together,” said Elsayed.

To Ansell, it’s less about the bars and more a philosophical question.

“Is it the chicken or the egg?  Do you build the shops and they bring the people or do you bring the people and in comes the shops?” said Ansell.

What downtown Windsor is today isn’t what it was 10 years ago, nor will it be what it is 10 years from now.  For some, the focus is to keep the downtown core awake no matter what time of day.  For Valentinis, downtown needs to look up.

“How do I see the future of downtown Windsor?  Bright.”