Alayne McGregor
This story is slightly expanded from the version in the printed BUZZ.
Closing Bank Street on Saturdays last summer was a success, says Downtown Bank BIA executive director Christine Leadman. “It supported those businesses that were the hardest-hit, and it gave an opportunity for residents to walk and feel comfortable and safe.”
The BIA recently conducted a public survey, which received more than 600 responses, to get feedback on the street closure. “It was very positive. We didn’t get any negative responses from the public.”
Leadman was speaking at a community conversation on supporting small businesses in Centretown. The online meeting on March 30 was an initiative of the Centretown Community Association. It also featured Kevin McHale, the executive director of the Sparks Street BIA, and Christa Blaszczyk, the owner of the Elgin Street business boogie + birdie.
The Downtown Bank BIA arranged for Bank Street to be reserved for pedestrians, cyclists, and scooters from 9 a.m. to midnight every Saturday from July 11 to September 5. While motor vehicles weren’t allowed on the street, they could still be parked on intersecting side streets. Leadman said that some BIA members had concerns about deliveries, and “we worked around those.”
The cost was $12 to $15 thousand a day, she said, for security, medical assistance, signage, and other costs.
An analysis of visits before, during, and after the closure didn’t see a significant change in numbers, but “it was a different kind of visit.” When the street was closed, visitors were more from the local area; when it was open, they tended to come from further afar. She said that might have been because people thought that Bank Street being closed meant that they couldn’t go there.
The closure allowed restaurants, which had been particular hard-hit by the pandemic, to open patio space right on the street – adding more tables for distanced dining – and other businesses to place tables and signs outside.
The BIA also worked with local service agencies and the city to place porta-potties on Bank Street to provide access to washroom facilities for all.
Alayne McGregor/The BUZZ
Leadman said the closure was part of an effort to rebuild consumer confidence. People hadn’t felt comfortable going into stores and walking down the street, so the BIA put decals on the ground to tell people about keeping your distance.
“People are afraid to go beyond and of course with the numbers moving up and down, it makes it very challenging to make decisions: ‘Should I go out or shouldn’t I go out? Am I safer in this store or in that store?’ ”
She argued the small stores were safer than big-box stores, because they contained fewer people and it was easier to monitor the number of people in them. Furthermore, it’s safer to shop in your own community because, unlike a Walmart, you’re not encountering people from all over, she said.
Will the Bank closure happen again this summer? “We’re working on it. We’ll most likely look at doing a street closure again – in what format, we’re not sure yet.” The BIA’s board will review the results of the public feedback and an Environics study, as well as polling its members, before making a decision.
The closure could be extended to Friday nights as well as Saturdays, she said, and Flora Hall Brewing is also looking at closing Flora and possibly Frank Street this summer.
The BIA will also enliven Bank Street with public art and visuals: “just to make the street a little more fun, entertaining but also safe.”
No large events in 2021
What you won’t see there this summer is the large-scale events like Glowfair that ran pre-pandemic. “Events are not going to be a mainstay on downtown Bank Street. We are looking at redirecting our efforts focusing more on the local and our residents in the area. And not engaging people to drive in.”
McHale said the Sparks Street BIA was also doubling down on placemaking in order to “create a comfortable and safe warm inviting spaces. I spent three hours on the street with my site operations guy to figure out where we will put benches on the street this year, to set them up so people feel safer.”
He said that Sparks Street had had its best February ever just before the pandemic from hosting Winterlude 2020. But when it lost its mainstay traffic from civil servants and tourists “in a flash”, they realized they needed to engage with downtown residents more.
“We realized that we weren’t forging a proper relationship with the people who live around us.” He urged residents to “take a chance” by checking put local businesses they hadn’t tried before.
McHale said he thought workers would return downtown, if not full-time at least splitting their time between home and office. He said that both employers and employees would prefer that, saying he knew of two people who were offered full-time jobs at Shopify and turned them down because they wouldn’t have an office.
The businesses that would be most affected by time-splitting would be coffee or sandwich shops, he said, and less clothing shops or sit-down restaurants or nail salons. “My restaurateurs say people order a $25 lunch once or twice a week. You’re in independent retailers like clothing stores once every three or four weeks. You’re not having your nails done every three days. I can see people coming in M W F and that’s when they go out for lunch or dinner. So I don’t think it’s going to hurt the bigger retailers.”
Downtowns have been disproportionately affected by the pandemic, McHale said, compared to suburban Home Depots. But “no one defines Ottawa by Kanata or Orleans or Barrhaven. It’s the personality that we create down here.”
Ultimately, Leadman said, it’s important to support main street businesses, in whatever way is comfortable for you.
“The main streets that you have are important to the vitality of your community.”
She paid tribute to the resiliency of businesses in her BIA: “their resolve to continue, to try to make it work, to survive. It’s been a remarkable year. I don’t think any of us ever have been through anything like this. It keeps you on your toes, that’s for sure – trying to pivot, to adjust to what’s happening.
“But looking beyond this, we can’t wallow in it. We have to address it, but we also have to have a vision for later on, for post-pandemic . The BIAs have been looking at that: what will be the future of our main streets. If you don’t have a main street, your communities are going to be devastated. These are such important corridors in your city’s structure. This what brings the interest to the cities.”