On Monday, an architect for the firm that wants to redevelop the former W.C. Wood industrial site on Arthur Street presented area residents with an overall vision that seemed to favour gradually greater heights as the development approaches the river. Residents who have lobbied hard to prevent highrises from being built on the site wouldn’t have been impressed. However, one wonders about the limits to this sort of opposition to highrises in our fair city.
There’s a good argument to be made for trying to maintain the low-rise and mid-rise look of the city’s historic core, and the most important sight lines for Church of Our Lady. But that doesn’t leave a whole lot of spots for highrises in the downtown area of a city that’s been designated by the Ontario government as a growth centre. A vision for the Wood site that works for the city as a whole is what will be needed in the end.