By Stacy O’Brien
Edmonton’s bustling arts district sits in the heart of the downtown.
Standing at City Hall, on one side stands the Edmonton Art Gallery, and looking across Sir Winston Churchill Square is the Citadel Theatre. On the other side rests the Francis Winspear Centre for Music.
Having arts facilities in one central location is important because people begin to know where to go to find arts events, says Peni Christopher, Citadel Theatre artistic co-ordinator. “It has this building effect.”
Ottawa could learn from Edmonton’s example, in the way it has developed and promoted its arts district.
“I think having a vibrant and profiled arts community is a must,” says Linda Balduzzi, with the Ottawa Arts Court Foundation. “Most major cities have it.” Balduzzi is the executive director of the Arts Court, located in the old courthouse, which is home to the Ottawa Art Gallery and 30 local arts and cultural organizations.
Balduzzi says that to create an arts district and promote it, money, resources and leadership are needed at a municipal government level.
Although Ottawa city council has designated an area of downtown Ottawa as the arts district, little has been done to promote or develop it.
“Public money is hard to come by,” Balduzzi says. “It’s all very well to see it in paper, but we have to ensure action is taken, otherwise it just sits on the shelf.”
Yet lately, she explains that the arts community in Ottawa has just tried to survive, after city council considered slashing much of the arts funding in the recent city budget.
While Ottawa’s arts district languishes, Edmonton’s art district is thriving. Christopher says that sometimes in downtown Edmonton there will be three or more events going on at once at the Winspear Centre for Music, the Citadel Theatre and the Edmonton Art Gallery.
The downtown area will be filled with people hanging out, having dinner and drinks, before and after the shows. “There is this great energy and buzz on those nights,” she says.
But Edmonton’s downtown was not always so vibrant.
“Eight years ago in Edmonton were pretty dark days for our city,” says Doug McConnell, chairperson of the Arts District Partnership.
“We thought about our core assets, and one of those strengths was our arts community.”
He and others in the city wanted to find a way to develop Edmonton’s downtown area and bring more people into it. McConnell and others formed the Arts District Partnership made up of arts organizations, City of Edmonton staff and the business community.
The partnership focused on the city centre and began marketing it as the arts district.
McConnell explains that before the partnership formed, there were a lot of derelict buildings downtown and much of the new growth in the city was happening in the suburbs. “The downtown didn’t have any new energy and life,” he says. “There were a lot of dark doors and storefronts.”
They had looked at other cities that had been rejuvenated by the addition of arts facilities and arts districts. The partnership decided to focus on expanding and promoting arts in downtown Edmonton, to help not just the arts but the business community as well.
At the time, the Citadel Theatre and the Edmonton Art Gallery were already located in the area. Since then, the Francis Winspear Centre for Music, which McConnell helped to design, has been built and the CBC studios have moved into the area.
“We said let’s try to make the whole greater than its parts,” McConnell says, adding that now the arts district brings arts patrons and shoppers alike into the area. He says the rejuvenation of this one area has also begun to spread onto side streets close to the arts district, which have drawn in new businesses.
It’s not just the arts community in Edmonton, but also arts administrators in Ottawa that realize the value of the arts in developing business and a feeling of community within the city.
Ottawa city council and the Council for the Arts have looked into establishing an arts district. In the State of the Arts in Ottawa 2001, a report put out by the Council for the Arts, which is one of the organizations in the Arts Court, recommended the city create a new “cultural precinct,” but little has come of it.
The Art and Heritage Plan in the city’s 20/20 Plan mentions the “nurturing” of arts and cultural districts in the city, including a central arts and theatre district, as well as rural, suburban and urban clusters.
In 2002, city council looked into three possible areas, including Rideau Street, Wellington Street west in New Hintonburg, or Bank Street, South of Somerset as possible arts district locations. Balduzzi, with the Art Court, says that city council passed a motion whereby the area around Nicholas Street and Mackenzie King Bridge would be considered the official cultural precinct, but little has been done to develop or market the area.
Businesses along Rideau Street have also tried to brand the area as the arts and theatre district in the city, says Peter Honeywell, executive director of the Council for the Arts in Ottawa. But there are only a few arts organizations in the area and there has been no new development over the past few years.
“You’ve got some cultural anchors there like the Ottawa School of Art, La Nouvelle Scene and Arts Court,” Honeywell says. “But I haven’t seen any development. There are the same anchors there as five years ago.”
He says having a cluster of similar businesses or arts facilities can be good because it brings people into the area to visit all of them at once. He points to the cluster of antique stores along Bank Street in Ottawa South, which draws customers to that part of town. “Some people say they don’t want competition, but it increases business because people visit from shop to shop,” he says.
Honeywell hopes that partnerships with the business community are possible. “After the recent budget process, we’ve just been through we received a lot of support from business,” he says. “We may see more dialogue in the future and see some action on that front.”
He says it will take community support and interest to make a flourishing arts district happen. “The interest has got to come from the community.”