‘Live at The Square’ set to energize City Hall Square

Stakeholders hope to bring Windsor’s core to life through the remainder of the summer. CTV Windsor’s Bob Bellacicco explains.

Windsor’s new City Hall Square is making a splash in its first week.

“You can see behind me every day people are out here enjoying the facility, enjoying the features that we have out here. Kids playing in the fountain, jumping out of the water,” said Michael Chantler, the city’s commissioner of Community Services.

City Hall Square is a community gathering place that has been used frequently since its launch five days ago.

“It’s not just a fountain. It’s not just a splash pad. It’s not just an ice rink,” Chantler exclaimed.

The city has created activations for children. An event celebrating dogs is coming up this weekend. Residents are also encouraged to bring a lawn chair downtown because there will be music in The Square every Friday from now until Oct. 31.

“We are coming up with activations, whether it’s the stuff we do with the kids during the day or it’s our evening entertainment, like the Live at The Square free concert entertainment that’s coming up,” Chantler said.

Show times and musical acts can be found on the City of Windsor website.

Events like Live at The Square bring people downtown who, in turn, may venture off into the core. There are a lot of events coming up this summer like Downtown Showdown on Ouellette Avenue on July 26, hosted by Maple Leaf Pro Wrestling, which excites downtown business owners.

“It’d be great if we did five days a week,” said Duane Chouinard, owner at Eastwoods, who gets traffic from the Casino and Macassa Bay and appreciates any event or activation the city initiates downtown. “Anytime there’s any type of event, whatever it is, it just brings a lot of people to downtown core.”

Kevin Dinardo is bringing an outdoor pole-vaulting event to the riverfront July 25 and 26 near the Macassa Bay.

“It’s always good to take some of the events outside of the stadium, put it into an atmosphere where there’s going to be general population to get them a little bit more of an experience of, you know, track and field events that they might not see,” Dinardo said.

The atmosphere was electric atop the Pelissier parking garage last weekend when Border City Boxing held an event on the roof top with many staying downtown after the show.

“It was incredible,” said Chris MacLeod, chair of the Downtown Windsor BIA. “It’s events like that that change people’s perception about downtown.”