Have no fear, says Peter Harris to Sparks Street Mall pessimists, we’ve got heritage here.
And if any store on the pedestrian mall doesn’t want to alter its look to fit his heritage vision, the dissident store risks losing its business, he says.
In order to boost business during non-peak hours, Harris, manager of the Sparks Street Mall Management Board, wants Sparks Street store owners to tap into the mall’s Victorian atmosphere by “enhancing the heritage feel” of their storefronts.
Under Harris’ plan, some stores will just need extra trim or decorative awning. But stores carrying modern props such as neon signs will need to change a little more to fit the theme year of 1867.
“It’s really just going back to the original purpose of the buildings,” says Harris. “They weren’t built to have signs like that on them.”
More expensive remodeling could include replacing modern-looking entranceways with wooden ones and putting baseboards along the front of stores.
The proposal will come before all the merchants at a general board meeting in late March.
If adopted, the plan, which could cost up to $250,000, might be phased in by the year 2000.
And any store owners who are not keen on participating in the project should think twice about their decision, says Harris.
“It’s either shape up or get out,” he says. “You either develop and get with the theme or else people won’t go in your store.”
Harris’ plan is a good idea as long as it doesn’t go too far in removing a store’s individuality, says Joanne Patenaude, owner of Zablooz Cat Bar & Cafe. She says she would never remove her $3,000 neon yellow and green sign for the sake of fitting in.
“If everyone looks the same, we’re going to be lost,” says Patenaude.
Harris’ love-it-or-leave-it ultimatum probably would work on Patenaude’s establishment. She says business has increased 20 per cent in the past two years and 80 per cent of those customers are regulars. She’s considering renovations of her own.
John Przybyteck, co-owner of Books Canada, which is slated to close its doors in April, says the board’s efforts to market the mall are necessary but not enough.
The problem is not the lack of customer traffic outside the mall’s peak business hours, says Przybyteck, but the overall decline of shoppers on the Sparks Street Mall.
“We used to have between 4,500 and 5,500 people walking by our door between the hours of 11:30 and 2:30 (when it wasn’t winter),” he says. “Last fall, we’d see 2,500 (people) walk by on a good day.”
Przybyteck attributes the decline in shopper volume to past government downsizing, that relocated workers but “never replaced them.”
But there are no cure-all answers, says Tony Fisher, co-owner of Fisher E. R. Ltd. Men’s Wear, whose storefront is considered an example for the proposed heritage theme.
“I think others will jump on board when they see the effect of what a heritage focus can accomplish,” he says.