HomeMy WebLinkAboutEDAC - 2017-03-22
ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT ADVISORY COMMITTEE MINUTES
March 22, 2017 City of Kitchener
The Economic Development Advisory Committee met on this date with the following members present: Councillors Bil
Ioannidis, Paul Singh and Scott Davey, Jeremy Auger, Mark Derro, Anthony Zammitt, Barry Lowry, Sandra O’Hagan,
Barclay Whittaker, Margaret Johnson, Andrew Head, Mark Paleczny and Johanna Classon-Romero
Staff in attendance: Cory Bluhm, Janette MacDonald, Chris Farrell, Silvia Di Donato, Kim Feere, Valerie Bradford, Brian
Bennett and Tracey Murray
Business Items
1. Shape DTK 2020
An overview was provided on the findings of the downtown surveys, forum and round tables.
- The survey was provided through social media, advertising and some specific stakeholder meetings
- The stakeholder group was very balanced in terms of demographics
EDAC members provided the following feedback:
- Pedestrian walkways – with flowers, seating
- Music and night life ranking low is surprising and maybe people living downtown are looking for the shift
of making it livable because there are so many more people downtown
- Creating a scene allows for an economic spin off whereas livable changes have a low ROI
- The core values outlined can be separated between the economic dev strategy and the neighbourhood
strategy and they could be split apart to identify what we can do from an Economic Development
component.
- The more people living downtown the more push there will be for amenities but we should also have
options of incentives for landlords to make rents lower for new tenants, etc., for example – there will also
be costs to make things happen and it will pay for itself over time.
- Don’t focus on the home runs and focus on the small hits and the rest will come along.
- Discourage vacant spaces and encourage multi use space.
- If we are going to develop something that is different we need to draw on the overall experience – more
than one thing / experience that people can enjoy
- Do you build it and they come or do they come and you build it – it’s a matter of figuring out if we have the
density draw coming or do we have a niche market that will create the draw
2. Approval of February minutes
On motion, the minutes were approved as circulated.
3. Update on City-Initiated RFPs
Brian Bennett provided an update on the sale of 345 King St W, advising that Perimeter Development was the
successful developer and they are proposing an office building. The development will have an underground
garage that will have public access afterhours.
On motion, the meeting adjourned at 1:00 p.m.
Tracey Murray
Committee Administrator