The Sparks Street BIA will rebrand as the Downtown BIA and see its boundaries expand to include 170 businesses and a number of professional offices across 130 properties on 39 city blocks.
Kevin McHale, executive director of the new Downtown BIA, told OBJ Tuesday that having a BIA that extends to more businesses has never been more important.
“This last weekend we saw Canadians, businesses and communities stepping up and making sure they’re going to come out and do everything they can to defend, protect and support local businesses and the local economy,” he said.
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“That’s exactly why this organization is important because it helps bring people together. It helps us create opportunities (for people) to find those little nooks and businesses that are around. It creates voice and place.”
The new boundaries extend west to Bay Street, south to Laurier Avenue West, east to Metcalfe Street, and along the west side of Elgin Street north of Slater Street. The boundary expansion was approved by the City of Ottawa, effective Jan. 1, 2025.
In a conversation with OBJ Tuesday, McHale said the rebrand covers what people know as “the traditional downtown core,” helping represent a neighbourhood that he said has been “under-represented for many years.”
McHale said today marks the first day of “year zero” for the expanded BIA, where the focus in the coming months and years will be stewardship, cleanliness and basic beautification.
“We want to get the street swept. We want litter taken away. We want those traffic cones or that pallet that sits on the corner for a week and a half gone. We never want that to ever happen again, which is something we regularly see down here … That’s really BIA 101,” he said. “If you don’t have a clean canvas, then all the other work you do will be for naught.”
He said that he hopes the BIA will be able to extend some of the programming currently on Sparks Street to the rest of the area and create new programming opportunities.
“We’d love to provide some programming, maybe live music, inside food courts and public areas, not just during the summertime, but maybe in the winter. (We would love) having a music series run through the winter,” he said.
He said the new BIA will extend initiatives that had been undertaken by the Sparks Street BIA, such as Open House events to showcase properties to potential lessees to help businesses “thrive and survive.”
“We’ve been supporting businesses along our current catchment area with various efforts. We want to extend that to other spaces so that we can maximize storefronts and buildings that have been underutilized,” McHale said.
“We believe in the power of collaboration and community building,” said Lindsay Appotive, board chair of the Downtown BIA, in a press release Tuesday. “This is a collective effort, where our members, partners, and stakeholders work together to make downtown Ottawa a place where business and people thrive. Our vision is for everyone to feel a sense of pride, inclusivity, and possibility when you say, ‘Hello Downtown.’”
“Hello Downtown” will be the new BIA’s branding, which McHale called “a call-to-action, encouraging everyone to be part of the exciting transformation taking place in downtown Ottawa.”
The Downtown BIA also unveiled its new website, hellodowntown.ca, and social media accounts Tuesday.
In August 2024, OBJ reported that the BIA began exploring the possibility of a boundary expansion a year earlier, as did several other BIAs in the city.
The decision to pursue expansion was originally prompted by the pandemic, as well as the “Freedom Convoy” in 2022, McHale said at the time.