- by Anne Finlay-Stewart, Editor

I used to love cognitive illusions like Rubin's vase. What do you see first: two faces or a vase? It's all in the contrast.

Sometimes what you see depends on how you look at something, or what is around it.

I tried to look at downtown Owen Sound from a different perspective.

Downtowns are never static. Businesses open and close all the time as entrepreneurs start their dreams or run out of capital; inherit a windfall or retire.

Even since the beginning of the pandemic there have been lots of new businesses. Just in the past few months we've seen Happy Earth, Puzzld, Wizard's Castle, Fuego Wood Fired Pizza and Hock Stars open downtown.

We've seen CCs Street Food and CTRE close and Kokoro and PWRFade Golf move. The former Sun Times building is in the process of conversion, and the council has approved a million dollars worth of work on the 900 block of 1st Avenue East.

There are some really creative and beautiful storefronts, patios, and window displays.

And then – there is the plywood and brown paper.

Twenty-one storefronts in the 12 square blocks that make up the River District sport either plywood or paper over facades or windows.

This does not count those whose windows, and interiors, are just empty. Some of these have been in this condition not for weeks or months, but years.

At least nine belong to a single property owner.

The former Downtown Improvement Area (whose former office windows are ironically papered over)  is now the River District. Its boundaries are defined in City by-laws as the area east from the Sydenham River/harbour to 4th Avenue East, north from 7th Street to 11th.

The property owners within the area pay a mandatory surcharge, approved annually by city council, of something around 10% of their commercial tax levy as a membership fee. In general when there is a commercial tenant, that business owner is paying that levy through their rent.

So we have business owners paying a premium to lease next to storefronts made of chipboard, or looking frankly abandoned.

In addition to the River District Board of Management, the City also has a Community Development Coordinator, a Manager of Community and Business Development, a By-Law department, and the Community Development, Tourism and Culture Committee.

There are no longer tax rebates for vacant commercial properties – the City has gone the other way in its Community Improvement Plan providing grants towards study and design, accessibility and landscaping and specifically for downtown and harbour properties there are grants for facade and structural improvements, vacant building conversion and expansion, and start-up space leasehold improvements.

And while we have banners and flowers and music and events from car shows to scone contests, the City seems to have no tools to rid us of the plague of plywood and brown paper.

For a while they asked property owners to put up signs provided by the City that said “This space isn't empty; it's full of potential!”

The message became less credible as the signs faded and were eventually removed. And of course, not all building owners were willing to have them.

The idea of having art loaned by the Tom Thomson in windows also seemed to fizzle over time, and pop-ups seem to be non-starters.

For a while last decade a group of downtowners put together a voluntary Businesses and Organizations of Owen Sound Together (BOOST).

They are the people who brought you a series of First Fridays – late openings with special themes, music, discounts and treats. Frisky, Festive and Fifties were some I recall that brought hundreds of visitors and locals downtown. It was fun to look at the balloons and costumes and beautiful posters, but anyone looking at the smiles could not notice the “missing teeth” of unmaintained buildings.

We can't direct people to “look over there” but “never mind that.”

I love downtown, and I have loved having an office there (and frankly, a bathroom – but that's another article). We are blessed with imaginative people who have taken real risks, even in a pandemic, to bring us new services, products and experiences.

Surely we owe it to those people to ensure that what is around them makes them look their best, and not just by contrast with plywood and brown paper.