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‘Downtown champions table’ and a ‘vibrancy office’ cited as next steps in downtown revitalization

November 26, 2024

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It’s been a year of planning around Ottawa’s downtown as local stakeholders and government representatives have floated ideas and drawn up timelines for ways to bring the ailing area of the city back to life. In January, the Downtown Revitalization Task Force formed by Liberal MP Yasir Naqvi released its long-anticipated report outlining the most pressing issues facing businesses and residents in the core and setting out recommendations. A few months later, in May, the Ottawa Board of Trade (OBOT) came out with its Downtown Ottawa Action Agenda, laying out a five-year plan to raise funds, build housing, and create new jobs. Now, the main players behind these plans tell OBJ they’re working on getting the ball rolling. “Since we dropped the plan in May, we’ve been working on an implementation strategy,” said Sueling Ching, president and CEO of OBOT. “We see a lot of the work moving forward and we just last week announced that we are going to move forward with the downtown champions table. We’re raising some seed funding to kickstart the agenda.” The OBOT action plan called for the addition of 40,000 residents and the creation of 50,000 jobs in the core by 2034 to reignite activity and innovation and bring vibrancy back to the area. It also proposed a $500-million fund to kickstart “a series of catalytic projects,” including significant enhancements to the public realms of Sparks Street and ByWard Market and the establishment of a new business incubation district and an arts/culture corridor. Ching said “downtown champions” will be announced in the coming weeks, in addition to what she calls the “downtown vibrancy office.” “The board of directors of the board of trade has committed to shepherding the downtown action plan over the next three years,” she said. “We will launch the vibrancy office in the beginning and it will serve the champions table. It will calibrate action items in the plan and communicate them to the community.” The groups will work on raising seed funding, she added – $350,000 to start, through a combination of public and private funding. Getting private stakeholders and multiple levels of government to work together is an oft-cited challenge for those working on downtown revitalization, but Ching said she’s feeling optimistic. “We have some federal champions in the city, like Yasir Naqvi and Mona Fortier, and we’ve been working with partners at PSPC through our Good Neighbours Summit initiative,” she said. “We feel optimistic around the province … we were encouraged when the premier came here in the spring and announced a new deal for Ottawa, which included downtown initiatives. And as far as the city goes, they’ve been really working side by side with us since the inception of our call for downtown Ottawa to be a priority.”

Looming election shifts priorities, poses challenges

While the Downtown Revitalization Task Force is no longer active, Naqvi told OBJ that its members are still at work on the cause. “That report was picked up by (OBOT) and they came up with an action plan that the city and the federal and provincial government, along with businesses and community partners, could start implementing,” he said. “That sort of is the second chapter to that important work and since then I believe all of us have been working on various aspects of those recommendations to put them into action.” At the federal level, Naqvi said planning for the disposal of multiple surplus government buildings in the core has taken priority. “One of the very big recommendations that was made in the report was to facilitate a much faster process of disposal so that buildings in the downtown core can be either refurbished for other purposes or converted for residential purposes,” he said. “The last budget in 2024 has several pieces that came directly from the recommendations that were made in (the report).” He said that included allowing surplus properties to be leased, as well as creating a public lands bank that lists every federally owned property to improve transparency around which buildings are available. With a federal election looming, Naqvi said one of the things he’ll be working on is facilitating collaboration with other levels of government and ensuring the city has whatever resources the federal government is able to provide. Several months after the release of the plans, local realtor Darren Fleming said it’s hard to see how they will turn into action. “I would broadly categorize all the efforts to date as a lot of talk,” said Fleming, CEO of commercial real estate consulting firm Real Strategy Advisors. “When you read the plan, some of their short-term things include prioritizing housing. How do you prioritize something at the beginning that’s going to take years?” It’s not to say that there hasn’t been any movement in the downtown core, said Fleming, who points to increased traffic from employees returning to the office. But he said that type of action has been driven primarily by decisions from employers. “It’s pretty consistent from what I expected,” Fleming said. “A lot of the problem child areas like Sparks Street are under (the federal government’s) purview. If not them, then the NCC. If they’re not part of the committee, if they’re not part of the task force, what else can we expect? They set their own agendas and timelines for what they’re going to do and, quite frankly, it takes them a long time to do anything. And in the midst of a minority government that is poised to look at an election, they’re not going to do anything.”

Actions in motion at a smaller scale

While it will likely take years to address some of the downtown core’s biggest challenges, community groups such as the Centretown BIA have been able to implement small but impactful actions that align with parts of the action agenda. “It was really enlightening just to be surrounded by key players around the table, to hear different thoughts and ideas,” said BIA executive director SabriNa Lemay, who was part of the downtown revitalization task force. “It’s also enlightening for me, specifically being part of the Centretown BIA, with seeing the way we were in alignment with the plan itself, prior to even being part of the task force. It really did make me feel like we are on the right track.” The BIA has implemented initiatives focused on beautification, cleanliness, sustainability and safety, all of which have much shorter timelines than many other grander goals, according to Lemay. The BIA has also received a grant from the city’s public realm division to create a park, which would play host to community events. For the BIA, “placemaking” – ensuring Centretown is a desirable destination with its own unique characteristics – has been a major priority in planning, particularly as the BIA expands its borders, a process that will begin in 2025. While these efforts will help bring Centretown back to life, Lemay said other problems will persist without larger, collaborative efforts happening at a higher level. “Our members have not seen a full return of business,” she said. “There’s been some uptick, but the biggest concern is, and still remains, the social issues on the street, mental health, the challenges we’re seeing every day. They have been working so hard, so tirelessly, and our councillor has been wonderful, but we’re still not seeing any changes on the streets.” While Lemay said the BIA is working to keep up with concerns, there’s only so much it can do. “I think the biggest thing I really want to push is that our members do need to be heard,” she said. “Them just sending emails (to the city) isn’t enough. They need that in-person visit. They need those conversations. A lot of them are feeling unseen and unheard.” Still, Lemay said seeing the revitalization work being done over the past year has instilled her with energy. “I’m super excited,” she said. “I think that we have so many options. There are very key players sitting around the table that are ready and willing to make change. I think we are motivated by the challenges we see and that we’re not going to stop until we see this change, working together. It’s really beautiful.”