Hamilton looks to its waterfront as next great frontier

HAMILTONLast November, long-time resident Donna Reid opened what many in Steeltown might find a really tough sell a store celebrating all the great things past, present and future about Hamilton.

Id never lived in a city before where people seemed more focused on what wed lost, rather than what we have, says Reid, who moved to Hamilton 16 years ago after stints in Toronto, Quebec City and Calgary.

Her wonderfully eclectic James St. N. shop, The Hamilton Store, is just 600 square feet. But almost every inch of its walls are lined with photos, maps, artwork, books and memorabilia chronicling a city with a rich industrial past and a rapidly evolving future.

So its somewhat ironic that the store is just a short drive or about a 12-block walk down the street from sprawling waterfront parking lots and old warehouses that could soon become the heart of some of the biggest transformations Hamilton has seen in decades.

Of course, thats assuming city officials can finally turn years of talk into action, and that developers dont do what theyve done so often in the past here, says Reid tear down the old to make way for the new, only to later abandon their grand plans, leaving yet more empty lots and broken dreams in their wake.

Hamilton is almost a laboratory of urban renewal right now, says local architect David Premi. Were in a bona fide boom.

There are many, many condominium projects on the table. We have a new GO Train station coming next year in time for the Pan Am Games. There are a lot of pieces being put into place that are really capturing the attention of developers, both inside and outside Hamilton.

The waterfront is a critical part of that.

The City of Hamilton is now in the final stages of preparing one of the last major stretches of urban waterfront in Southern Ontario more than 18 hectares over two sprawling sites for redevelopment.

In all, the city will spend about $39 million to transform two bayfront sites, some $13 million of that just in roads, sidewalks, sewers and other infrastructure to make the so-called West Harbour area in the citys once-busy shipping port shovel-ready, says Chris Phillips, head of waterfront redevelopment for the city.

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Hamilton looks to its waterfront as next great frontier