4. Our city’s downtown retail district is in protracted decline with over 25% empty storefronts along 2nd Ave. East. How can we revitalize our downtown – what process, what specific options and what sorts of investments?
MAYOR
Ian Boddy
Our downtown is the heart of our community. My family had a clothing store for 39 years. My grandfather had a butcher shop before that. I am the third generation with a business downtown. I have watched it ebb and flow as shopping trends change. Downtown must be more than just a place to shop. The Downtown River Precinct Plan is a major policy piece to make our downtown an attractive people place and more welcoming to all. We have completed a Downtown Revitalization study looking for gaps in products and services. We need to continue to attract unique culture, fine arts, and specialty boutiques and services. The Façade Improvement grant will continue to support businesses improving the streetscape. New housing developments in the core and around the harbour will bring more residents downtown.
Ray Botten
My above Answer to question # 3 will help to answer this question. However we should absorb the Downtown Improvement Association into our Owen Sound Public Works. We can generate a cost savings overall and also streamline relevant services that will promote a healthy downtown. Creative design management and youth oriented consulting should be investigated. “We” should allow the creative talents and mentorship of home grown professionals alongside our youth to make our city what they desire it should be!
DEPUTY MAYOR
Brian O’Leary
According to a recent report card on our strategic plan, in 2014, the vacancy rate downtown was 17%. In July of 2018, the vacancy rate was 12%, a significant improvement. The city’s downtown has been in transition as we are seeing a change to more specialty retail and service uses, which is how our downtown will distinguish itself from other commercial areas. In 2018, council approved the Downtown River Precinct, which is a plan to revitalize the downtown and make it an inviting, safe, and inclusive place. I believe that as we move forward to implement this plan, we are supporting business investment. The development charges holiday has also encouraged residential development, and the Sydenham condos are a great example. In 2016/2017, we partnered with the DIA to undertake a revitalization study in the downtown. This study took a hard look at strengths and opportunities of our downtown. One action was to study parking in our downtown. I have encouraged the DIA and city to look at options and opportunities to make parking complimentary in our downtown. In 2018 council supported $20,000.00 for a new event to attract people to the inner harbour and downtown. I support events like Harbourfest and First Friday. I would like to see more partnerships with Festival of Northern Lights and winter events. The facade program has had a huge impact on our downtown as well. I will continue to support and fund these types of initiatives that support and strengthen downtown.
Paul Patille
In order to revitalize our downtown core, we need to provide monetary incentives to individuals and retailers that own these properties. We can only achieve this if we provide limited tax rebates to owners that upgrade their properties to beautify their store facades.
COUNCILLORS
Travis Dodd
As current Chair of the Economic Development and Tourism Advisory Committee, I addressed the opportunity to work with our downtown building owners to help beautify the vacant storefronts within our downtown core. We have many talented artists within our community and it would be great to have a partnership between the vacant storefront building owners and our arts community that could help showcase their works while at the same time help give a facelift to storefronts. As someone who lives and works in downtown Owen Sound, I am extremely passionate about making our downtown a destination not only for tourists but our residents as well. I believe we are starting to see a change with the Professional Suites and The Sydenham condos. People are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to live in the downtown core and be closer to the services that are being offered. As a member of Council, it is our duty to continue being proactive and making sure the current policies are not restrictive to the advancement of our current and future businesses that will help to make Owen Sound downtown a destination area. For example; every Thursday night we turn our downtown core into a pedestrian only street festival with live music throughout the core. Building on experiences like this, and encouraging community engagement will bring new life to downtown Owen Sound. Initiatives like the downtown river precinct and the expansion of the market square are some ways of how investments in our downtown core will help increase foot traffic to our downtown storefronts.
Brock Hamley
Our historic downtown and waterfront areas are full of potential, and one of the most important ways to begin unlocking that potential is to ensure that the city’s plans for revitalization of the downtown core remain a priority, with clearly defined goals and timelines. There is more that can be done though, and we can look at other cities across the province that have similar geographical features, population sizes and challenges, and learn from their successes. One resource that doesn’t get enough attention is the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing’s Economic Development and Case Study Handbook , which highlights how different municipalities have overcome their economic challenges to grow and thrive again.
Steven Hencze
Retail is bad everywhere .. more people are running to Walmart because they are broke ...i think the core needs .. a huge play ground for kids .. a pool ... splash pad .. to get more families to the core
Richard Thomas
One of the first things I did as chair of the Economic Development Committee in 2015 was help to get a Downtown Revitalization Study going. This in depth look at the downtown core gave us a good look at why people come downtown, what they do when they are there and what they’d like to see. Parking was identified as one of the key obstacles, and as you may know from the media there are a number of proposals being discussed at present regarding parking. For businesses to thrive in our downtown, people need to value and support them.
Bill Twaddle
You can see the glass as either half-empty or half-full. I first came to Owen Sound in 1967. In the 50 years since there has been a recurring theme that the downtown is dying. This is a theme that I reject. The retail climate, worldwide, is changing, but our downtown is not dying. It has been transitioning and evolving for those 50 years but it is definitely NOT dying. You can walk the downtown streets and choose to see only the empty storefronts, or you can see the creative and engaging businesses, some new, some well-established, that make downtown Owen Sound an inviting and welcoming place. In 2008 as part of the official plan review an independent survey showed that we had then more total commercial space in the downtown than most other cities our size. AND we had a lower vacancy rate than those other cities. I am told that a survey earlier this year showed that the current vacancy rate is slightly lower than it was in 2008. Are empty storefronts a concern? Of course. But we must not create a negative self-fulfilling prophecy. The answer is to promote and celebrate what we have. And to be more proactive about encouraging new businesses to locate here. The city has a community improvement program (CIP) which targets the downtown area, However it has not been used very much in recent years which suggests it might be missing the target. The CIP needs to be re-evaluated and adjusted or expanded to encourage more redevelopment and improvement of properties. I also propose that the city and the DIA co-operate on a gap analysis of the downtown to identify and learn from the successes we have and, more importantly, to identify business types we don’t have that could succeed here. With that information a marketing campaign should be launched targeting the types of entrepreneurial business that could fit into the downtown and succeed here.
Riel Warrilow
Through programs like “are you most” we will be able to identify and encourage new small business owners to move up to Owen Sound. If we want to really make this a place where people want to live, then the businesses will come too. We make this city better for everyone by supporting our low-income folks, prioritizing the environment, and listening to residents when they bring forward concerns.
Jacquie Furtner
Downtown can be seen as an indicator of our community’s economic health. There are so many investments we can and should be making. People today are looking for a sense of place and a sense of community more than ever before. We want a more authentic experience. There is a shift happening and I think Owen Sound should be on board moving forward. If you look at many of the successful towns in North America, they have gone back to the “European Standard”. They have a central gathering area, outdoor cafés, pedestrian friendly streets and later dinner times. We should be mindful of this in our planning. We are lucky to have some great events downtown, but these only bring people down a few times a year. We need to focus more on regular activity rather than only events. Being the vice Chair of the OSDIA, I am aware of what goes on downtown and what people are asking for. I have suggested looking at our brand and working to come up with a marketing plan going forward. I have asked that we work with others, including the city, economic development and tourism as well as our membership and the public to come up with something that everyone can be proud of. The people in our community are our best assets. I think asking for input it essential in getting different perspectives and opinions.
Denae Moores
First, the most important thing is what we can all do, candidates or other, and that is support our downtown businesses when we shop. For the most part, our downtown core consists of family run businesses, and that connection often reflects in a better service and in a better downtown core. I think we all want the downtown to succeed. But why is it always an issue? Is what we’re currently doing not working, and if not, why is that? I’m a small business owner myself, I understand the challenges of competing with larger companies that can afford to charge less for products and services. I know how much a little break here and there can mean. So we need to ensure that the percentage of storefront vacancies does not increase. What are we doing well that makes business successful downtown? Let’s do more of that. We need to ensure we are incentivizing and attracting new business to the downtown core. When a new business looks to set up shop in Owen Sound and decides against downtown, why did they choose against it? And let’s stop doing that.
John Tamming
A visitor once noted about one of our art galleries that it was a terrific gallery but “too bad about the downtown.” There are some green shoots in downtown dining and retail (we can all name them) but we need to sustain them and set the table for more. To that end:
• Continue to build on the successes we have to date. The city had the foresight to follow the Big Dig with a very successful façade improvement program and is now literally pivoting part of its downtown core to face and reclaim our historic riverfront.
• Unless the provincial regulations allow us to keep marijuana stores out of our downtown core, I am opposed to such outlets in the city. As you walk around what is increasingly a seedy downtown, how often do you exclaim, “Gee, the one thing we could really use here are two or three pot stores”?
• Appoint a knowledgeable and aggressive City Revitalization Director (CRD). Have the courage to listen to him or her. Hire someone for the position “from away” with a proven track record of turning around other urban blights. Fold property standards bylaw enforcement into this office and dip into the planning department budget to fund it. To float ideas in the spirit of letting 1000 flowers bloom, the CRD could be mandated to:
• Commission and recommend specific five and ten year plans to continue riverfront and alley improvements from the 8th Street Bridge to the harbour wall
• Create one of the toughest and far reaching property standards bylaws in the province
• Enforce that bylaw consistently and early
• Identify and inventory each quarter a top 5 list of properties in the downtown core which need to be revitalized. Work directly with the owners to do same; if the owner is recalcitrant, step up the enforcement
• As retail premises turn over or become temporarily vacant, work with the owners to mitigate the risk of sidewalk blight
• Work with the County to identify and grow funds which could be used to deal with the city housing shortage in order to provide poverty based housing solutions outside our downtown core. It is a shame that so much east side development was not mandated to contain second floor residential housing); so much asphalt and infrastructure for buildings which do not house a single residential tenant.
• Identify a section of the downtown core as a testing zone where the city may itself consider investing in several properties to jump start revitalization of upper apartments in order to attract better tenants to the core
• Work with the local police to ensure that the laws against trespass or petty harassment, etc are enforced • Require city staff to park south of the 8th Street Bridge, freeing up parking along the proposed riverfront improvement district.
• And here is a thought stolen from a past riverfront architect years ago - Purchase a building along the west side of Second Avenue East (the 10th street or 9th street block), tear it down and provide for expansive access to the alley and riverfront behind. Watch what happens.
Marion Koepke
I believe that with the enhancement of the riverfront area it will bring new business opportunities to the downtown core. I also believe that elimination of paid parking may revitalize the downtown and encourage business activity and events to take place downtown. We need to look at making downtown more “people friendly” and perhaps create a “pedestrian mall” atmosphere where a downtown block (with a rotating location of the block) could be closed to vehicular traffic for one evening and showcase that block with buskers and events in an effort to bring people downtown.
Gail McCartney
Before I started selling Real Estate I had a business with my family downtown. I have seen downtown both better and worse than it is now. There are some exciting new businesses that are thriving and some sad empty spaces in need of significant work. I think Council serves entrepreneurs best if they can eliminate as much red tape as possible and by loudly promoting what a great place Owen Sound is to dine and shop.
Carol Merton
The City has already designated the downtown as the first priority for the strategic and development planning. I support that direction. Voters are indicating that because of the appearance and the empty store fronts, they are choosing to shop elsewhere in the city. An aesthetically pleasing, well maintained, welcoming culture to the downtown is critical to re-energizing this area. It is important to recognize the downtown as a distinct and unique neighbourhood with a special combination of businesses, residences, cultural events and gathering places. Projects such as the Downtown River Precinct, will help create a thriving, vital, sustainable and accessible downtown area.
