Major redevelopment is in the works for downtown Hamilton. Do shelters fit in?

Phil Reape's frostbitten fingertips are a nasty reminder of the time he didn't have a warm bed at the Salvation Army in downtown Hamilton.

Reape says he missed curfew one night at the packed York Boulevard shelter and couldn't get back in during a coronavirus outbreak.

Facing bitter cold, he tried to stay warm by burning hand sanitizer in a tent and huddling in parking garages.

You get up in the morning and you can't even move. It was so cold."

His fingers are blackened and scabbed, but Reape survived the ordeal and is back at Hamilton's largest men's shelter this frigid February evening, hoping to find a place to live like dozens of others inside.

The Salvation Army has been on the downtown site for more than a 100 years and its brick building has welcomed homeless men to its Hamilton Booth Centre since the 1950s.

But a private consortium says the shelter doesn't fit with its vision for an arts and entertainment precinct in the area.

Shelters are extremely important," says Jasper Kujavsky, a partner in the Hamilton Urban Precinct Entertainment Group (HUPEG).

But are they best located in an urban core right next to an arena and restaurants and patios? Not necessarily."

Last year, HUPEG struck a long-term leasing arrangement with the city to refurbish and operate FirstOntario Centre, FirstOntario Concert Hall and the Hamilton Convention Centre.

City officials hailed the deal - the details of which remain confidential - as a way to save taxpayers $155 million in operating and capital costs over 30 years.

In exchange for pouring tens of millions into revamping the city-owned venues, the consortium also picks up three municipal properties.

They include the York Boulevard parkade, a parking lot behind it on Vine Street and another parcel at York and Caroline Street North.

HUPEG - which includes the Carmen's Group, labour union LIUNA, Meridian Credit Union and Paletta Group - aims to build mixed-use residential highrises in the area.

The idea is that the added density will generate new eateries and shops to serve future residents who will live near a modernized FirstOntario Centre, the former Copps Coliseum at the corner Bay Street North.

At the heart of this, we're talking about the creation of a precinct - an arts and entertainment district - where it's live, work and play," PJ Mercanti, CEO of Carmen's, told The Spectator.

But everything has to be in its best place," said Kujavsky, addressing the question of the 82-bed men's shelter.

Cities have to have social services, and cities have to have arts and entertainment. You want them to be in the most optimized locations."

Some at city hall make the same case.

Mayor Fred Eisenberger said the Booth Centre is out of sync" with redevelopment plans for the area. He hopes the Salvation Army can find another location.

Look, we need shelters. We need shelter space, now more than ever. The question becomes where and how."

The Salvation Army has done incredible work for generations," said Coun. Jason Farr, who represents downtown.

It's up to the Christian-based charity to decide whether to move, but the area has been designated, for a lack of a better word, for an entertainment district," Farr said.

Others have a different take.

I think it's disgusting ... that folks that are very keen on delivering an entertainment district and an exciting, energetic vibrant downtown core aren't able to see that there can be a coexistence of realities," Coun. Nrinder Nann said.

HUPEG's position on the shelter is the epitome of privilege," said Don Seymour, executive director of Wesley Urban Ministries.

That's just NIMBY with a lot of money," he contended, using the acronym for not in my backyard."

The consortium, meanwhile, insists it's not pressuring the Salvation Army to leave.

HUPEG will work in a sensitive way and collaboratively with them to look at options in the core" to relocate its services, Kujavsky said.

This cannot happen unless the Salvation Army is happy and in agreement with whatever plan is presented to them, but we are certainly going to be proactively, as an organization, trying to fashion a plan for them that does all of that."

The Salvation Army, however, says it remains committed to the current location," which also includes its community and family services building, for the foreseeable future."

The organization has met with developers on a couple of occasions, and at their request" to hear their plans, the Ontario Division wrote in an emailed statement.

The Salvation Army declined The Spectator's recent interview requests, but in an earlier conversation, spokesperson Glenn van Gulik noted the Booth Centre is centrally located for those it serves.

Being close to other social services downtown is also important, van Gulik added.

It is about recognizing that we're part of a system, that we don't stand alone, that we work with others, and in that light we need to be considerate of and be engaged in connecting with all of those agency partners."

Major developments planned

The bulldozers and cranes haven't yet converged on York Boulevard.

But with major developments planned - in addition to HUPEG's - the blueprints for change are being drafted.

• IN8 aims to demolish the long-ailing Hamilton City Centre - the former Eaton Centre connected to Jackson Square - to build four residential towers, with street-facing commercial space.

With a site plan submitted, owner Darryl Firsten said he hopes to soon have city approval and expects a long demolition" to start at the end of this year or beginning of 2023.

The project - which he initially pegged at $700 million in 2020, but is now likely a bigger number" due to inflation - promises to breathe more life into downtown, Firsten said.

In total, we would add the better part of 3,000 people downtown and hopefully we're the tip of the iceberg."

• Real Properties, which owns Jackson Square next door, has no plans to move into residential development but encourages more of it.

It would definitely be beneficial for our owner-operator stores, for sure," leasing manager Jocelyne Mainville said.

• Developer Aaron Collina has purchased the 1.75-acre Philpott Memorial Church property on York Boulevard next to the Salvation Army with plans for a high-density, mixed-use project.

The congregation plans to move into the former Lincoln Alexander Centre on King Street East near Gore Park in 2024.

Overall, the deal involved seven properties, six parties, three brokerages and 2.76 acres with the price per acre at well over $11 million," noted John MacNamara of Blair Blanchard Stapleton Limited.

• A block east at MacNab Street North, new owners aim to restore the historic Coppley building, a former textile factory that dates to 1856.

The Hamilton Community Foundation plans to transform the 70,000-square-foot building into its headquarters and establish a community hub in partnership with Toronto developer TAS.

Part of our explicit agenda is we'd like to protect space for community use, affordable community use," said Terry Cooke, foundation CEO.

Filling in missing teeth" - like parking lots or underutilized sites - in and around York to add density through development will create more vibrancy, he said.

So I'm bullish on the future of this area, but it's not because of mega projects," such as a revamped FirstOntario Centre, as it is a bunch of smaller infill contributions."

• Kitty-corner from the arena, the shuttered Sir John A. Macdonald Secondary building sits on an eight-acre property that stretches from Bay to Hess.

The province has rejected its funding requests, but the school board still hopes to build an elementary school there. Just a few years ago, HUPEG members eyed the vast property as the potential site of a convention centre.

York Boulevard - originally Merrick Street - has seen its fair share of massive developments.

The former Copps Coliseum and Jackson Square are the jigsaw pieces of a years-long urban renewal project that saw blocks of Victorian-era buildings razed in the late-1960s.

The Hamilton Farmers' Market and Central Library, which help form the York streetscape, also ended up part of the sprawling puzzle. The Hamilton City Centre, formerly Eaton Centre, opened in 1990.

Kevin Whyte, operations manager at G.S. Dunn, has watched the area change during his 35 years with the dry mustard miller just a few steps north of York on Park Street.

From his perspective, the cresting wave of investment bodes well for the area.

I really do think it's going to be great for the city - quite frankly, I think perhaps long overdue."

G.S. Dunn, whose industrial roots go back more than a century and has been on Park since the late-1950s, plans to stick around for it, Whyte says.

We have $30-million-plus worth of equipment - and specialized equipment, I should add - tied up in our facility to produce the product that we produce."

The business processes mustard seeds into flour and ships the product to more than 70 countries.

G.S. Dunn has been a good neighbour by trying to keep truck traffic to a minimum and using technology to lower the din of machinery, Whyte says.

I don't see any problem going forward."

Cooke views the Salvation Army in a similar light.

Far be it for me to tell them what to do, but I don't see it as incompatible with the changing neighbourhood, and frankly, part of the urban mixture," he said.

It's a whole range of people, opportunities, challenges that have to coexist."

Shelters on prime real estate

The Salvation Army isn't the only shelter drawing attention.

A few blocks north, Mission Services knows it sits on coveted ground at the corner of James and Barton.

People are always approaching us because obviously that's a piece of prime real estate in the core," associate executive director Wendy Kennelly said.

Would-be buyers offer to find the agency another site, but the location must be right: correct zoning, close to the core, along a major transit route, Kennelly said.

The men's shelter has its detractors, but on balance, Mission Services has coexisted very, very, well" with its neighbours since its arrival in 1956.

Starting in the mid-2000s, James North saw an influx of artists and galleries drawn to cheap rents relative to Toronto, generating a creative renaissance.

But amid an ensuing flurry of investment - as new eateries, bars and condos joined the streetscape - rents became too high for some to stick around.

Across Hamilton, which hit a record $2-billion building-permit year in 2021, the inner-city gentrification is coupled with a perfect storm of hardship: Renovictions, unaffordable housing, stagnant social-assistance rates, homeless encampments, packed shelters, opioid overdoses, the pandemic.

Hamilton's database of people who access services like shelters and drop-in centres reached 1,375 at the end of last September, according to the latest figure the city has provided.

That was higher than at any other time in 2021 or 2020, but data collection has also improved, which could have led to the identification of more people.

Of those, about 47 per cent are considered chronically homeless, or for at least six months in the past year or at least 18 months over the past three.

This is an issue that's steeped in a lack of housing and a lack of health-care supports for people that are very ill," says Don Seymour of Wesley Urban Ministries.

At its drop-in centre on Catharine Street North, Wesley offers an array of essential services, including meals, harm-reduction supplies and help finding housing.

But if James and York are in flux, so is the turf around Wesley.

In the next block, Hamilton Urban Core Community Health Centre's longtime home on Rebecca Street has been demolished to make way for a 30-storey residential tower.

Urban Core, which operates Hamilton's only supervised consumption site, has found temporary digs for its services elsewhere in the core. It plans to build a new centre on Cannon Street near Wentworth.

Seymour says Wesley's landlord is committed to the agency, but there is pushback from certain quarters.

A lot of our neighbours have made it clear they don't like us here. They blame us for the people that are here."

Wesley reached out to apartment dwellers to work out the issues, including complaints about people in John Rebecca Park.

But Seymour said the response was abrupt.

They just said, We want you gone.' That was it."

Downtown is for everybody'

As life grows more unaffordable, low-income residents are displaced from downtown.

But it's unlikely" all will be forced to live elsewhere, says a University of Waterloo professor who is studying gentrification in Hamilton.

So having service organizations that assist those communities, where they are located is absolutely essential," said Brian Doucet, who is Canada Research Chair in urban change and social inclusion.

Especially if a city is saying our city, our downtown is for everybody. Well, that means everybody."

To strike the right balance, municipalities need to be more deliberate in ensuring development addresses social needs like affordability, Doucet suggests.

I think the conversation needs to shift from we basically welcome any kind of development to critically looking at how a large redevelopment project is going to enhance the lives and opportunities for everyone in the city."

That includes LRT, which delivered condos in Kitchener-Waterloo, but failed on affordable, family housing, says Doucet, calling the experience a lesson" for Hamilton.

Mayor Fred Eisenbeger says the city will include provisions for affordability, through such tools as inclusionary zoning, along the future Main-King-Queenston LRT corridor.

But an affordability requirement wasn't part of the negotiations that led to the HUPEG deal, he said.

I think we'd like to encourage that, but we can't always set standards to make it mandatory because they certainly may diminish the investments that they're prepared to make."

Outside the Salvation Army, Phil Reape has more immediate concerns, like finding a place to live.

It was nuts," he recalls of his ordeal in the bone-chilling cold, rubbing his frostbitten fingers with his thumb.

Not too long ago, he couldn't have imagined this, Reape says.

Before his life fell apart during a divorce, he worked in IT, had a house. He has kids.

I ran out of money and I was on the street."

Reape considers the idea of an entertainment district sweeping up the core, including where the shelter sits.

We're not a suit-and-tie town," Reape offers. We're never going to be like that, so I don't know what they're expecting."

But if the Salvation Army ever pulls up its York Boulevard stakes, something will have to replace it.

Like you could add two more and ... they're still going to have a homeless problem."

Teviah Moro is a reporter at The Spectator. tmoro@thespec.com