Citi Plaza is empty with vandalism a daily reality. The property manager says the city must act now | CBC News
Citi Plaza managers are urging politicians to keep funding the daytime drop-in spaces at the Ark Aid Mission in Old East Village or face more marginalized people moving downtown and hurting the former mall even further.
“We certainly have compassion for the homeless and the street-involved people. There needs to be somewhere for them to go in the daytime,” said Bonnie Wludyka, the senior property manager of Citi Plaza.
The former mall, which opened in 1989 as a solution to boost a struggling downtown, hasn’t leased any space since the pandemic and has lost a quarter of its tenants because of safety concerns stemming from the opioid crisis and homelessness.
“It’s simply not fair to kick [people] out of their shelters and give them nowhere to go during the day. Essentially, the city is downloading them to businesses, which isn’t fair. We all pay taxes to ensure that we can operate our businesses but it’s becoming increasingly more difficult when homeless people are in the street and they’re causing havoc in our businesses,” Wludyka said.
City councillors will vote Tuesday whether to give Ark Aid Mission $610,000 to continue daytime drop-in spaces at its location in Old East Village for the next year.
It’s a move supported by Citi Plaza and, to an extent, the group that represents downtown London business owners. They say, if those drop-in spaces are eliminated, and nothing is brought in to replace them, downtown will suffer even further.
“We have thefts, we have break and enters. There’s stealing of metal, copper, heat trace cables. They’ll just walk into stores and take what they want and walk out,” Wludyka said. “We have damages to vehicles, broken glass, graffiti, doors being jimmied, lots of plumbing expenses with flushed needles and things like that.”
Since January, fires have been frequently set inside and outside Citi Plaza, she said.
“We’ve gone through 20 extinguishers just from January alone, and that doesn’t include security just stomping things out. Clothing, pizza boxes, garbage, whatever they can, they’re lighting it on fire.”
An annual security budget that used to be $300,000 is now about $1-million for staffing alone, Wludyka said. “We’ve also had $100,000 worth of damage to the building in the last year.”
Citi Plaza houses CBC London, the Central library, the Middlesex-London Health Unit, Goodlife Fitness and some City of London Services, among other tenants. Dollarama is one of the only retailers left, and often has three security guards outside monitoring for theft.
It’s a far cry from the fancy Galleria London mall that housed swanky stores such as Ralph Lauren and Harry Rosen, as well as London’s first Gap. By 1999, Galleria started struggling, Eatons left, and it pivoted away from retail to housing more event and office spaces.
Serratore Shoe repair has been in the location near Goodlife for about 15 years, but has been operating in London since the 1920s. Since office workers stopped working downtown during the pandemic, it’s been increasingly difficult to make ends meet, said Judith Bailey, who has worked at the store for 12 years.
“I’ve never seen it this bad. If something doesn’t pick up, we won’t be around for much longer. I’ve been spit at, we’ve had vandalism, I’ve had someone scare off paying customers,” Bailey said.
“We should be bending over backwards for the people down here who are ready to get help, because everyone deserves to be out of the cold at night. Everyone.”
If the city closes Ark Aid Mission drop-in spaces, people will migrate into businesses, she added.
The Old East Village business improvement area (BIA) wants the drop-in spaces moved elsewhere, away from their storefronts that they say have experienced the brunt of the homeless and opioid crisis.
“While we recognize the critical need for housing stability services in London, we must highlight the disproportionate burden being placed on businesses and property owners within our district,” general manager Kevin Morrison wrote in a letter to politicians.
“In 2023, the BIA was allocated $500,000 of city funding to aid in revitalization efforts, yet much of these funds have been directed to mitigating the impacts of crime and disorder on our local businesses,” Morrison said. The BIA will have to spend up to $60,000 this year on private property clean-up and $30,000 for window replacement.
The Downtown London board of directors supports funding drop-in spaces, but doesn’t outline where they should go.
“It is imperative that the placement of this service aligns with previous council decisions and is situated in a location with the appropriate zoning in place,” the board of directors wrote.
