The spark might finally be coming back to Sparks Street as a new management team plans to steer the pedestrian mall in a fresh direction. Seven elected representatives were approved by city council to the Sparks Street Mall Management Board last week. Together, they represent the restaurants, retail, services and finances that Sparks Street has to offer.
Antoine Kano and Ian Wright are the new executive chair and vice chair of the SSMMB respectively. Jeff O’Reilly will take on the role of secretary and the treasurer will be Erik Vlasblom. The other seats have been taken by Peter Chase, Nazmi Fawaz, and Elayne Schwartz; their position on the board will last for the next four years.
The Sparks Street BIA has been divided on key issues over the last few years. Les Gagne was relieved of his position as executive chair in 2014, which further divided the community. The recent general election demonstrated the divide between the general membership of the BIA.
“It was kind of an unusual thing,” explains Kevin McHale, the program and events co-ordinator for the Sparks Street BIA.
“After our general election, we had a tie between [two candidates] so we held a run-off election and amazingly enough there was a tie then as well, which is pretty rare.”
The first two ties were amongst the general membership of the BIA so the tie-breaking vote was held amongst the board members. The divisive issue was one of gendered representation on the elected board.
“Every time you have a new board, it does develop a new strategy, a new set of priorities for its term,” says McHale.
McHale says this new council will focus on communication and involvement from all members of the BIA.
“It’s hard to believe sometimes, but you may have a merchant only a block away from each other, but they may never have met. They are so busy with their own store and their world that they sometimes don’t know who actually owns a store a block away,” says McHale.
He says he wants general members of the BIA to be able to come to council and committee meetings so that their voices can be heard.
Ian Wright, vice chair of the management board, outlined two ways in which communication and involvement will be different over the next four years.
“The biggest difference is in the past, our constitution had never been coalesced into one document,” Wright says. “The previous board has put together a working constitution that really outlines how things need to work and that will help everybody understand exactly how things are done.”
Getting people involved with the Sparks Street BIA and visiting Sparks Street itself has been an issue in the past. Former executive chair, Les Gagne, brought in large crowds with his poutine, rib, and busker festivals. However, the new board’s approach will diverge from the vision Gagne had for the street.
“I suppose where we differ from Les, is we want the BIA to be more focused on promoting the businesses on the street rather than promoting events. We still want to have lots of events on the street, we think that’s part of promoting the businesses and bringing people down to the street, but we just want to push more the business as opposed to the events,” Wright says.
McHale says that in-store contests or multi-store sale packages could be a few new ways to promote the street, along with new and returning events.
“Les was a real ball of energy, there is no doubt about that,” Wright says. “A lot of the things he did were good for the street but his goal was more in making revenue as opposed to really promoting the business on the street and that’s where he sort of differed from the board in the past.”
Over the next month the new board will begin forming committees and planning for the fourth New Year’s Eve celebration on Sparks Street.