City Hall Makeover
I am a firm believer that there are no original ideas, but got this one and to ME it is original, so I am just going to go with that.
Background:
Joe Fontana wants to build a new City Hall. It will cost (he says) $100 million. The discussions I am seeing involve questions like: Should a new one be built? Should they just fix the old one? Where is the money coming from? (Apparently a great deal of Fontana becoming Mayor is due to his pledge of zero tax increase).
My Brilliant Idea:
It’s not original. It is “stolen” and reworked. You know the TV show Extreme Home Makeover (or whatever it is)? We have an Extreme City Hall Makeover show. Huh? See where I am going with this?
Why do businesses donate to a home makeover? Mostly advertising and a bit for goodwill. Here they can have both. Certainly London has enough major construction companies to pony up a chunk of their advertising budget to donate to rebuilding City Hall. Dare I suggest even the unions kick in? But not just the big dogs. Small businesses should also want to get in on the action, they have advertising budgets too. Advertising companies have advertising budgets. Let’s invite them too. The local media could have potential National Exposure (advertising dollars). The A-Channel (or maybe the new Sun) could take it and run with a series of shows. How hard can it be to put together a “reality” show? The list goes on.
What’s in it for you? The citizen?
You get a new City Hall (likely better than the one you’d get for $100 million), at a cost of ZERO tax dollars.
I call this Tax By Choice. This particular tax is in the form of advertising dollars. You got advertising bucks? Pony up, if you want.
http://londonontariocanada.wordpress.com/2011/04/28/the-most-brilliant-idea-ever/
thatguyinlondon
shared this idea
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Jack Tripper
commented
What about buying the Bell building and turning it into city hall? And if there's room, have other municipal offices there as well. If there's no room for those, use the current city hall building for those offices. You could have the Ontario Works, London & Middlesex Housing and other city offices in there . Maybe rent out spare office space as well.
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thatguyinlondon
commented
So maybe this wasn't The Most Brilliant Idea Ever. Glad I added that question mark. :P I thought it would garner a bunch of dialogue. If nothing else people having fun with it. A friend of mine and I did just that. He asked the question of naming rights. There's a lot of money in naming rights, but I felt we needed to draw the line. Do we want a Tonda or Sifton London City Hall? (sorry only 2 construction names that came to mind) Or the John Labatt City Hall. No, it doesn't feel right at all. The name would have to be changed. Maybe the Rogers Civic Building. My son joked it could be the McDonald's City hall and I envisioned a whole different view of their dining room. Google City Hall. LOL
We would also have to be creative with how to give "the little" people a chance for name recognition. I was thinking of the names on tiles in the square between City Hall and Centennial Hall (The Bell Centennial Hall after massive upgrades). We could have engraved bricks or a massive plaque. People could (like some trees in Vic park) donate for a memorial plaque. I am sure there are people who would like City Hall as their memorial "statue".