Downtown plaza: Women's restrooms for chivalrous men
Construction of the 'Stone Horse Green' downtown plaza will most likely not be finished by October 7 and 8 when the City plans its grand opening, but during a site visit on Monday, September 19, a representative of Daniels Construction, the main contractor for the project, was confident that it would be "95%" done by that date, and completely done by the end of October. The City should still be able to go ahead with its grand opening event as planned, and the plaza will then be open to the public with the construction fence down for good. Any work that would remain to be done would be details like planting perennials.
At the moment it is still very much a construction site though, as workers from Daniels and The Bruce Company rush to beat the deadline. A lot still needs to be done, including installing or finishing pavers, benches, lighting, sculptures, planter capstones, plaques, the band shell, the fireplace in the band shell, the restrooms behind the band shell, ...
And talking about restrooms: There are, or will be when finished, four separate restrooms behind the band shell, individually accessible from the outside. According to Abby Attoun, the City's director of planning and community development, and also the driving force behind the 'Stone Horse Green', it was very important to the members of the ad hoc planning committee for the plaza that they should be unisex restrooms. But while they were originally conceived as unisex restrooms, they were ultimately designed as women's restrooms, with a toilet, a sink and no urinal. The reason for this is not clear (other than a misinterpretation of the word 'unisex' to mean only one toilet feature), but it is a design flaw that could make the restrooms very unwelcoming to women.