[cheswick]

Originally Posted by pspeid

While some of the potential negative outcomes discussed here are possible, I believe the stakeholders involved here have a great deal more information about the buyers and their plans than many, if not all, of us do (with the exception of Biff, who seems to know everything!). It's difficult to predict success or failure of the project from the sidelines.

With that in mind, I think the development agencies involved have learned a great deal about what works and what doesn't since PP was first built. Having such a huge interest in seeing the Portage Place "misjudgement" corrected, I doubt they would settle for vague promises from any potential developer of PP. My (uneducated) guess is that the stakeholders have seen a pretty sting commitment from the developers in what they, at least minimally, plan to do, and that it's an improvement over the status quo.

In all fairness, is it possible to do anything that isn't an improvement over the status quo? That mall hasn't been updated since it was opened 30 years ago. They replace floor tiles with mismatched ones. They run the escalators backwards to every other place on the continent. I get that it was a failure of a mall from day one, but I honestly think poor management has brought it down to the level it is today. Even ten or 15 years ago it was a better mall and I'd say downtown was less vibrant then.