Gravenhurst is complex and vulnerable, and a tad confused.
I have always been suspicious of any one who claims that improvements they intend to make, will affect me with the same positive, life enhancing stroke. Lately we hear and read many such claims, and for the most part, it’s a perspective thing and not a factual, statistical, or proven improvement…..the offers of community enhancement and progress of course fall very much into this area of grave concern, at least for a few of us, who routinely doubt the claims of politicians and developers that their model for our improved living will satisfy even a portion of our most hoped-for conveniences.
As a long-in-the tooth reporter-kind, serving our region of Muskoka, I see through the glossy images presented by developers, to the clear mission beyond, and it always has to do with their prosperity and our capability to adjust to the improvements they want us to support……I haven’t shopped at our new Wharf complex on Muskoka Bay once since it opened several years ago. I’ve walked the docks several times on humid summer nights, for a breath of lake-fresh air but I prefer to shop uptown-downtown as much as possible because it is the area that has been most disregarded in the grasp for the holy grail of progress. While I do not support the Business Improvement Association here, for a number of personal grievances, I know that if there isn’t positive change soon, the mainstreet will suffer a huge depression……and when you add on additional urban pods, such as the south end development, change is imminent and it may be devastating. The BIA and its alligator at both ends operating strategy, can not measure up to the demands of the day. The in-fighting, which is nothing new, has made it ineffective at a time when it should be in the midst of a giant campaign of mainstreet improvements.
Gravenhurst Town Council has not lived up to its mentorship role with the BIA at all, and the strife within is a clear demonstration of the surgery required……what clearly needs to be done now to make it healthy and dynamic for the coming year…..the fast approaching, back-breaking challenges. It will take the town exercising authority and responsible governance to keep the BIA executive to task…..or if necessary abandon it entirely and form a new and better suited organization to the mission of maintaining the business dynamic……by supporting all related businesses, not bashing one another into a spiraling down, self-defeating stalemate; at a time when each stake-holder should be clawing to rise above the threshold of out-datedness, and inaction.
I have cherished living in Gravenhurst because of its small town, neighborly way of conducting business. My boys went to school here and following graduation opened up a main street business to carry on their music craft….., and they are stake holders in the future well being of the historic business corridor but see a very dire situation manifesting year after year, the result of a leadership void. We would all be grossly disadvantaged by a decline in our historic main street and it is more than simply a BIA problem. As an active Muskoka historian, I see great decline approaching, because of a confluence of many urban, aged architecture and economic issues reaching peaks at the same time. Major fires in historic business communities in Ontario should raise serious concerns about how we must revamp and secure our old architecture, for everyone’s well being. Upkeep on many buildings in the older sections of Muskoka’s larger communities is of constant concern, particularly when you see pictures of what a mainstreet looks like after a major fire event.
I am one who heartily agrees with urban renewal and while many of my contemporaries believe old architecture should be preserved at virtually “at all cost,” I believe it is vitally important to modernize “at any cost”, to ensure future durability and security. I have watched fires consume mainstreet buildings, and have witnessed first hand how the absence of firewalls can take down an entire block of old buildings. When a number of local houses were torn down to make way for a new commercial building, I was one of few historical-types who approved. The chances of those houses being restored as residences and even small shops, was remote at best, and sooner or later there would have been a catastrophic fire with potential of wiping out a block of buildings, and endangering human life. Gravenhurst has a considerable relationship in its past to great, all consuming fires.
The new commercial building will revitalize the south-east segment of the main street here in Gravenhurst, and that’s what is most needed.
I haven’t decided whether I will travel to the new commercial node coming to the south end of town…….it all depends on the re-location of businesses and if the shops I regularly visit move out of the historic downtown. I’m still a supporter of the traditional mainstreet so if I can get what I need there…..well, it will leave more room for others to shop at our new business nodes.
Gravenhurst is at a crossroads. A dangerous place and position to be in, when the only hand-up is the developer, leading us into the false security of what may be progressive, and what may be the characteristic change, that alters forever what we know and respect of the town that grew here.
I have always been suspicious of any one who claims that improvements they intend to make, will affect me with the same positive, life enhancing stroke. Lately we hear and read many such claims, and for the most part, it’s a perspective thing and not a factual, statistical, or proven improvement…..the offers of community enhancement and progress of course fall very much into this area of grave concern, at least for a few of us, who routinely doubt the claims of politicians and developers that their model for our improved living will satisfy even a portion of our most hoped-for conveniences.
As a long-in-the tooth reporter-kind, serving our region of Muskoka, I see through the glossy images presented by developers, to the clear mission beyond, and it always has to do with their prosperity and our capability to adjust to the improvements they want us to support……I haven’t shopped at our new Wharf complex on Muskoka Bay once since it opened several years ago. I’ve walked the docks several times on humid summer nights, for a breath of lake-fresh air but I prefer to shop uptown-downtown as much as possible because it is the area that has been most disregarded in the grasp for the holy grail of progress. While I do not support the Business Improvement Association here, for a number of personal grievances, I know that if there isn’t positive change soon, the mainstreet will suffer a huge depression……and when you add on additional urban pods, such as the south end development, change is imminent and it may be devastating. The BIA and its alligator at both ends operating strategy, can not measure up to the demands of the day. The in-fighting, which is nothing new, has made it ineffective at a time when it should be in the midst of a giant campaign of mainstreet improvements.
Gravenhurst Town Council has not lived up to its mentorship role with the BIA at all, and the strife within is a clear demonstration of the surgery required……what clearly needs to be done now to make it healthy and dynamic for the coming year…..the fast approaching, back-breaking challenges. It will take the town exercising authority and responsible governance to keep the BIA executive to task…..or if necessary abandon it entirely and form a new and better suited organization to the mission of maintaining the business dynamic……by supporting all related businesses, not bashing one another into a spiraling down, self-defeating stalemate; at a time when each stake-holder should be clawing to rise above the threshold of out-datedness, and inaction.
I have cherished living in Gravenhurst because of its small town, neighborly way of conducting business. My boys went to school here and following graduation opened up a main street business to carry on their music craft….., and they are stake holders in the future well being of the historic business corridor but see a very dire situation manifesting year after year, the result of a leadership void. We would all be grossly disadvantaged by a decline in our historic main street and it is more than simply a BIA problem. As an active Muskoka historian, I see great decline approaching, because of a confluence of many urban, aged architecture and economic issues reaching peaks at the same time. Major fires in historic business communities in Ontario should raise serious concerns about how we must revamp and secure our old architecture, for everyone’s well being. Upkeep on many buildings in the older sections of Muskoka’s larger communities is of constant concern, particularly when you see pictures of what a mainstreet looks like after a major fire event.
I am one who heartily agrees with urban renewal and while many of my contemporaries believe old architecture should be preserved at virtually “at all cost,” I believe it is vitally important to modernize “at any cost”, to ensure future durability and security. I have watched fires consume mainstreet buildings, and have witnessed first hand how the absence of firewalls can take down an entire block of old buildings. When a number of local houses were torn down to make way for a new commercial building, I was one of few historical-types who approved. The chances of those houses being restored as residences and even small shops, was remote at best, and sooner or later there would have been a catastrophic fire with potential of wiping out a block of buildings, and endangering human life. Gravenhurst has a considerable relationship in its past to great, all consuming fires.
The new commercial building will revitalize the south-east segment of the main street here in Gravenhurst, and that’s what is most needed.
I haven’t decided whether I will travel to the new commercial node coming to the south end of town…….it all depends on the re-location of businesses and if the shops I regularly visit move out of the historic downtown. I’m still a supporter of the traditional mainstreet so if I can get what I need there…..well, it will leave more room for others to shop at our new business nodes.
Gravenhurst is at a crossroads. A dangerous place and position to be in, when the only hand-up is the developer, leading us into the false security of what may be progressive, and what may be the characteristic change, that alters forever what we know and respect of the town that grew here.
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