Stressing it is just a starting point, Windsor's mayor wants residents to start thinking about making a section of Walkerville a distillery district.
Drew Dilkens attended Tuesday night's Walkerville Business Improvement Association's annual general meeting, armed with photos.
"City council approved over the course of the last couple of years $5.25-million to start undertaking one of the elements of the 20-year strategic plan dealing with theming and districting," says Dilkens. "I started in the Walkerville area only because there's such an authentic story to tell there."
Some of the ideas already on the table include a pedestrian walkway over Riverside Dr. to Devonshire Rd., lights strewn across Devonshire, making changes along Argyle, and a new parkette.
Mark Boscariol owns The Willistead Restuarant on Wyandotte St. E, just around the corner. He has also attended sessions put on by the International Downtown Association in the U.S.
BlackburnNews.com file photo of Hiram Walker. (Photo by Jason Viau)
"We do have North America's largest distillery, and Windsor doesn't do enough to promote the fact," he says. "And, in that area, you have this cluster of Canadian Club, Wisers, and the Walkerville Brewery so, it does make a foundation for a district."
Boscariol likes many of the ideas presented but has a warning for city council.
"It's gotta be grassroots driven," he says. "You don't come into that neighbourhood and impose something onto that neighbourhood."
A new roundabout at Riverside Dr. and Devonshire has already been approved in the city's 2018 capital budget, and construction is expected to start in the spring.
Last November, Dilkens announced plans to study a possible Asian Village on Wyandotte St. W. So far, no budget has been affirmed for that project but planning only started last fall.
Dilkens says he would also like to start the conversation in the Sandwich Towne area, Ford City, Riverside, and Downtown.