St. Catharines Downtown Association

Plans to use a city grant to add three new street-level apartments to a downtown building have been stalled by a St. Catharines councillor who wants the city’s core to be kept commercial.

Before any tax dollars go towards converting the building at 241 St. Paul St. to residential apartments, St. Patrick’s Coun. Mark Elliott wants to know what impact the change will have on the streetscape.

Downtown apartments tend to be rented by students, Elliott said in an interview after last week’s city council meeting, and students are famous for using bedsheets as curtains.

“Nothing will turn downtown into a slum faster than bedsheets in the windows,” Elliott said.

City planner Paul Chapman had recommended the city give the building’s owner $80,000 — or $5,000 for each of the 16 new residential units being created in the building. He also recommended $10,000 in facade improvement grants and the waiving of $5,600 in building permit fees.

But Elliott said he doesn’t want taxpayers’ money contributing to a project he thinks might be bad for the downtown.

In April, Councillors agreed the city should ban street-level residential development downtown, but the formal process for enacting the ban hasn’t been implemented yet. In the meantime, Elliott said the changes planned for 241 St. Paul are a good chance for the city to evaluate its policies on boosting business.

Andrew Hellwig, the architectural design consultant who applied for the grants on behalf of the building’s owner, Niagara-on-the-Lake lawyer Harry Fieguth, said the proposal includes three units fronting on to Garden Park, and 16 units on the building’s second floor. All of the units are proposed to be bachelor apartments.

Elliott said he has no problem with second-storey residential units, but he wants the city’s downtown streetscape to be consistent.

“If you want to know how to run a successful shopping district, just look at a shopping mall,” Elliott said. Malls establish “consistent retail fabric,” he said, “they don’t break it up with store, bar, bar, bar, office. If you add residential, you break it up even more.”

Elliott said the three small commercial units on the Garden Park side of the building that were proposed to be converted to residential units, are examples of small business spaces that are perfect for people starting new ventures who can’t afford large spaces on a main downtown street.

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