BANFF – The tourist town is seeing a number of positive signals despite the devastating COVID-19 pandemic as reinvestment continues in redevelopment and new businesses.
Dave Michaels, the Town of Banff’s manager of development services, said there has been many change of use applications to the the planning and development department in recent months.
“Obviously with the current COVID restrictions, there’s a lot of concern in town about businesses and what’s going on,” he told Banff’s Municipal Planning Commission on Thursday (Jan. 14).
“There’s definitely reinvestment being made into the community, which from the planning department’s perspective, is a good sign that people have confidence that this will pass and that we will be back to bustling Banff again.”
Several changes are being made, or are coming to the Caribou Corner building, at the corner of Caribou Street and Banff Avenue, including a new home for the Job Resource Centre upstairs.
Uprising Bake Shop and Espresso Bar is taking over the location of the former Banff Harley-Davidson retail store at Caribou Corner, and the closed Brunos Bar & Grill is the site of a new Japanese restaurant called Shoku Izakaya.
Seaborn Enterprises, a seafood market at 205 Wolf St., has permanently closed and a new restaurant is going into that location. It will be a sit-down restaurant, but there are no further details yet.
The former service bay at Petro-Can gas station, which was initially planned to be a liquor store, is now a pizza joint.
Two spaces at 117 Banff Ave. in the Keg Mall – Touchstones Gem Mine and Money Mart – have been converted into one space, now housing Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory.
Lastly, the location of Bighorn Gifts at 109 Banff Ave. is being converted into a new eating and drinking establishment, but it is not yet known what type of restaurant it will be.
Michaels said these change of use applications over a short period of time are more than the planning and development department have seen in quite some time.
“As tenants have emptied out or moved to other locations, they’re not sitting empty; they’re being taken up by other tenants,” he said.
“This is good to see and it shows people aren’t afraid to make reinvestments in properties and believe that things are going to come back.”
MPC Commissioner Scott McElhone said there seems to be a general trend of commercial uses in the downtown being switched over to food and beverage businesses.
“I know they don’t really interfere with the free market, but is that something the Town is monitoring?” he questioned.
Michaels said this is not something that is actively monitored.
“It definitely has been, probably for the last 10 or 15 years, more of a trend for changes of use to be eating and drinking, less changes to retail, but I think that’s kind of the general market,” he said.
“I think these things kind of go in waves and we’ve been riding a wave of restaurants for quite a while, but council have never indicated wanting to look at, or deal with, specific types of markets in Banff.”
Meanwhile, the Job Resource Centre, which is being kicked out of the Cascade Shops, has found a new home upstairs at Caribou Corner in the location of the closed Devil’s Gap Bar.
“We’ve received an application for that,” Michaels said.
“Their previous location was approved as eating and drinking, but we still don’t know the tenants of that location.”
Commissioner Chip Olver, who is a council representative on MPC, said she was pleased to hear the Job Resource Centre has found a new home.
“I was really concerned with the Job Resource Centre change of use, wondering where in the world it would go,” she said.
“It’s such, I believe, an essential service to our community and I am just so delighted to hear that they’ve got a location.”
