With a fresh new direction and strategic plan in place, Canmore’s Downtown Business Association is focused on several important projects this year including creating vibrancy in downtown core.
The business group, also known as a business revitalization zone and created through a bylaw with the ability to levy funds from all members within a geographical limit, held its annual general meeting at the end of May.
Acting chair for the board of directors Jamie Cuthill said the organization chose to end its contract with Canmore Business and Tourism to execute its strategic plan at the end of 2015 and instead hire its own executive director.
“We set out to do a strategic planning session and it was over two full days,” Cuthill said. “After many discussions it was decided at the end of that we needed to hire an executive director and move away from our contract with Canmore Business and Tourism.”
Beth VanderVoort said it has been exciting as the new executive director to watch the board of directors establish a strategic vision for the organization. That includes direction to create an experience for residents and visitors in the downtown core. She said streetscape and creative placemaking, for example, are ways to create social spaces for people to gather.
Efforts to that end could be installing benches, bike corrals, landscaping, and the BRZ has plans for a street piano this summer. It also included the $10,000 the Downtown Business Association spent on lights to decorate 10th street over the winter months.
VanderVoort said the lights were a “huge success.”
“I think they really brightened people’s perspective of the community – it was a huge win for the board and its members,” she said.
VanderVoort also said there are plans this year to work collaboratively with the municipality on a graffiti clean-up and public space maintenance program.
The organization received funding for a summer student, whom VanderVoort said will act as an ambassador in the downtown for the more than 200 businesses that are members of the BRZ, as well as answer general questions.
The board of the business association has also given direction for its executive director to work on marketing and social media, member engagement and advocacy as well as economic development.
When it comes to advocacy, VanderVoort is already working with the municipality on several fronts including parking, in-street patios and signage.
VanderVoort noted the downtown has less vacant commercial spaces than it did in 2012 when there were 39 empty spaces. In 2015 there were 35 and so far in 2016 there are 28 vacant properties including the four unoccupied lots in the downtown core.
“It is really exciting,” she said. “We are in this process of filling the spaces that sat empty for so long and it makes it a much more vibrant in the downtown.”
The board’s treasurer Ryan Brehon presented the financials. Because it is a BRZ, which is an agency made possible through the Municipal Government Act, the board can requisition or tax its members. In other words, property owners and businesses in the downtown are mandatory members and must pay the fee assessed to them each year and approved by council.
The Downtown Canmore Business Revitalization Zone budget has almost all revenues coming from levies from businesses and commercial property owners – as both are included in the organization’s makeup.
Those total requisition is $104,000 for 2016 and has not changed substantially from the past two years.
Brehon, however, said one main area of change in direction decided at the board level that impacts the financials is how reserves are held.
The organization holds three reserves – one for contributing to a future municipal downtown enhancement program ($31,000 balance), one for operating ($14,875) and an advocacy reserve ($3,675).
The reserve intended to provide a contribution to a possible major future capital enhancement program by the municipality was used to fund the purchase of the lighting for 10th Street last year and may be used for more projects in the future, Brehon said.
He said the Town’s enhancement plan process keeps being postponed in the capital budget by council and even when it does come forward, the amount the BRZ can provide won’t really get it a seat at the decision making table.
“It doesn’t really get us much,” Brehon said. “So let’s start spending that on smaller things and focusing on visitor experience instead.”
