Downtown’s in flux – again. Can a new city hall blueprint fix it?

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A downtown with Canada’s highest office vacancy rate.

A core district also in the throes of a residential building boom – its skyline changing almost daily by new towers going up.

Ongoing challenges related to homelessness and other social issues.

That’s the backdrop against which London is considering creating a new master plan to guide the future of the city’s core as it tries to bring new life to an area in transition again.

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“This is steering the ship,” David Ferreira, the downtown city councillor, said of the proposal that heads to council’s strategic priorities and policy committee on Tuesday.

“It’s bringing in a co-ordinated effort to get a handle on the changing landscapes that you see before us,” he added. “Downtown has gone through a lot of changes in a very short period of time. . . . So the main achievement (of this process) would be to bring the heart of the city back to its full strength.”

The plan city staff are proposing is divided into two phases; the first one includes the creation short-term actions quicker to implement while a longer-term vision for what the core can be is developed.

That second phase would include hiring a consultant to design a fuller plan that will identify targets and goals under a unified vision for the downtown as a place to live and work and as a destination for tourists and Londoners alike.

While creating that vision will be critical for the future of downtown, so is starting implementing changes now to support businesses in the core, Ferreira said.

“We need that comprehensive framework for downtown but that takes a while to build, especially if we want to do it right,” he said. But “the downtown needs work now.”

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Some areas where Ferreira said he would like action “sooner rather than later” include enhanced street cleaning, improvements in safety and security, and a continuation of the free, one-hour parking on downtown streets.

The creation of the plan comes at a time of transition for the downtown, whose vitality has ebbed and flow for the better part of the past five decades.

Once a busy commercial hub until the 1970s, filled with specialty shops, restaurants and retail stores, London’s downtown began losing some of its appeal in the ’80s as malls began popping up in the suburbs, with the constructions of Masonville Place in the north, Westmount mall in the west and expansions to White Oaks Mall in the south.

The stiff competition also brough along by online shopping in the 2000s led to a shift in focus for the downtown into a district that favoured office workers and services.

The COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent work-from-home phenomenon, however, shifted the landscape, with thousands of square metres in office space now sitting vacant.

Most recently, new construction of residential towers has become a new piece of the equation, which makes the creation of a long-term vision necessary, said Barbara Maly, head of Downtown London.

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“I think our whole approach is, ‘How do we ensure that this plan takes into account the social, the economic, the cultural conditions” of the downtown, she said.

“Like London, many downtowns across Canada are struggling with a number of issues related to homelessness and mental health issues that often play out on our streets. So, we aren’t alone in that regard. However, we also recognize that some cities have progressed and are actually finding their way out.”

About London’s downtown master plan

• City council has already set aside $434,000 for its creation
• It will include options for public input while its being developed
• First phase of the project is expected to start in the first quarter of next year
• A final report will be presented to council in the first half of 2026

jjuha@postmedia.com

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