Community Strategic Plan – Creating Our Tomorrow - City of Oshawa

Objective
A1. Revitalizing the
Downtown (cont’d)
Achievements
• The City has constructed Carriage Works Drive and two new municipal parking lots to support the Courthouse.
• The City has an agreement in place for a hotel and convention centre on Simcoe Street North, north of
Richmond Street.
• UOIT opened a Faculty of Education building at 11 Simcoe Street North September 2008 bringing an initial wave
of students to the downtown..
• The City has worked with UOIT and others to realize a major
university presence on the historic Regent Theatre site. The
new ownership of the Theatre will include day use by UOIT and
evening use as an entertainment venue under professional
theatre management, and a new 5 storey, 30,000 square foot
building to house UOIT faculty, staff and students.
(Right: Regent Theatre)
• Using an innovative funding and incentive package, the City
facilitated the preservation, restoration and reopening of the
Genosha Hotel as a student residence.
• The City has approved a new Zoning By-law to promote high quality uses along the main shopping and
pedestrian streets in the downtown.
• City staff is preparing an update to the Municipal Parking System Service Plan.
• The Downtown Development Officer is responsible for encouraging business retention and expansion,
developing partnerships between the public and private sectors, identifying opportunities for innovative programs
to assist business, and marketing Oshawa’s downtown as a vibrant and exciting area for new development.
Research on a downtown development corporation is complete.
• An update to the Downtown Action Plan is underway.
• Lots of anniversaries were recently celebrated, such as Lovell Drugs (100), Wilson Furniture (75), The Gift House
(35), Worlds Collide Comics (25) and Durham Medical (25).
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