Downtown Main Street District Community Improvement Plan

GPA prepared recommendations for a Community Improvement Plan (CIP) for the Main Street District of Downtown Mississauga. The Main Street District is a critical piece for realizing the vision in the Downtown21 Master Plan for a vital, animated, mixed-use downtown. The CIP focused on tools to address the Main Street District’s key challenges: securing the land required for the Main Street right-of-way; and incenting the development of office uses. Stakeholder consultations, in the form of one-on-one interviews and group meetings, were particularly important in understanding the barriers to office development faced in the Downtown. The central issue which emerged was the cost of providing adequate parking to attract tenants. Although higher order transit is gradually being expanded in the Downtown, potential tenants still demand levels of a parking consistent with a suburban setting rather than an urban downtown. Meeting this demand in the context of intensification requires structured or underground parking, a significant cost premium over greenfield office development providing surface parking. The recommended CIP included a number of potential strategies and incentives, including municipally operated parking structures, tax increment equivalent grants, fee rebates and development charge exemptions. Due to the limited number of properties and landowners within the district, it was recommended that this menu of CIP programs be drawn on to respond to specific conditions and opportunities, subject to Council approval.