It seems that seasonal affective disorder affects more than just people.
While it’s well documented that people tend to grow more depressed as the days get shorter and the winds get colder, businesses relying on pedestrian traffic face a slump as well, because people choose not to mingle outdoors on nippy days.
It’s an equally depressing concept for the small business owners on Sparks Street.
November and December are the busiest sales months for retailers, according to a Nov. 14 BNN report. However, Ottawa shoppers increasingly choose to shun blustery streets and instead make their purchases indoors, in the comfort of heated shopping malls or with a click of a mouse in their own homes.
This preference for places such as the nearby, heated Rideau Centre, where renovations are bringing another 21,400 square metres of leasable space, demonstrate the importance of attracting foot traffic to outdoor malls to keep businesses afloat.
The perils of open air malls in cold climates are well-documented and Sparks Street is no stranger to the issues winter brings, as a 2003 report on Sparks Street Mall from Queens University demonstrates. The report states that the cold, windy days common to winter in Ottawa discourage lounging about outside; this deserted streetscape does not encourage anyone to linger on the promenade.
Nonetheless, Ottawa certainly does not shut down on cold nights, as any visit to the ByWard Market can confirms. Attracting pedestrians to Sparks Street during the winter months was one of the top priorities for outgoing Sparks Street BIA executive director Les Gagné.
Gagné focused on attracting stores that encouraged customers to linger inside, as opposed to quick, targeted shopping, bringing high-profile restaurants and department stores to the street.
Although Holt Renfrew left the street not long ago, restaurants such as Bier Markt and Les Trois Brasseurs have opened to great fanfare, attracting the sought-after business lunch crowd and keeping patrons long after the major offices have closed down.
Possibly the most important piece of Gagné’s legacy was his ability to attract huge-scale events to the street, even in the colder months.
Filling an Ottawa street in the dead of winter is no small feat and yet the New Year’s Eve celebrations on Sparks Street he brought in proved wildly successful last year.
Even if people were unwilling to browse Sparks Street in January, Gagné managed to keep the mall on people’s minds.
This assault on two fronts brought a change in businesses and increased brand recognition, however, it was fundamentally flawed. Gagné sought to increase pedestrian traffic, but the new brand being created wouldn’t necessarily help the old businesses on the street.
The perception of Sparks Street as the place to be for a New Year’s party would certainly help business at D’Arcy McGee’s, but the owners of the now-closed Green Dragon could care less how many people walk down their street when their curio store closed for the night. It’s no surprise, then, that Gagné could be a divisive figure amongst the business owners on the street.
Gagné has left Sparks Street in an awkward transitional state between what it once was and the street he appeared to be creating.
A recent article in the Ottawa Citizen declared that it’s “a service industry to public servants.” Effectively, a place to get a business lunch or for tourists to sightsee, but lacking the pizzazz Gagné tried to create.
In effect, Gagné failed to beat the winter and bring people to the street year-round.
Hopefully, the next BIA executive director has a street full of creative ideas to bring the masses outside, because we need them.