Red Deer’s downtown is seeing encouraging signs of growth with about 50 new businesses moving in during the past year.
“It’s fabulous news,” said Amanda Gould, executive-director for Red Deer’s Downtown Business Association.
She lists Blue Agave restaurant in the Millennium Centre, Vibe meditation on Little Gaetz (next to Sunworks), Victoria’s Beauty on Little Gaetz, Caballa Blanco Bistro in the Professional Building, and Ross Street Ice Cream on the Ross Street Patio as just some of the downtown’s recent business gains.
Gould believes the increase is not only good for the downtown, but for the local economy in general. “It speaks to a rise in confidence,” she said. “I think more people believe things are changing, that they are seeing the end of the tunnel now,” in terms of the pandemic.
Reasons for the boost in businesses could be tied to lower rents in the downtown, which Gould believes makes it a great place to test-run a new venture— especially now that downtown office employees are no longer working from home but are back in their workplaces.
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Although pandemic-related restrictions were hard on many merchants, Gould believes they have also made many Red Deerians, who were laid off from jobs, reconsider how they earn their living.
“It’s not unusual to see an increase in new businesses in a time of crisis,” she said. “A lot of people look to do something where they are more in control of their future.”
John Sennema, manager of land and economic development for the City of Red Deer, also sees the boost in downtown businesses as a sign the economy is moving on from COVID-related challenges. “It speaks to good things for the downtown.”
New business owners tend to want affordable rents, the ability to have flexible hours and more autonomy — and they are finding the city’s core checks those boxes, he added. As a result, “it seems that a lot of the empty storefronts are filling.”
Although the downtown’s nine per cent business turnover rate is still above the seven percent average, “it’s not far outside the norm” and will likely improve as the economic climate stabilizes, added Sennema.
A side benefit to having more activity in the downtown is the annual levy that’s paid by core-area businesses to support the DBA dropped by about 15 per cent this year. Gould attributed this to being able to spread it over more businesses, as well efforts that were previously made to reduce the DBA’s budget for 2022.
“We wanted to support them because we knew so many businesses were suffering because of restrictions to reduce the spread of COVID,” she said.
With more going on in the heart of the city, Sennema hopes Red Deerians will rediscover — “or in some cases, discover” the downtown.
Gould said a full slate of Ross Street Patio performances and other events are being planned this spring and summer to attract people to the city’s core. This includes another Meet the Streets Festival to introduce the public to new mural projects.
The festival, which recent won a Community Award of Excellence from the Economic Development Association of Alberta, will be run in conjunction with Centrefest during the September long weekend.
lmichelin@reddeeradvocate.com
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