By Dana Townsend
They’re big, bold and brand-new.
But already some downtown businesses are saying they’re a bad idea.
Pedestrians on Bank Street may have noticed a change in the kiosks lining the sidewalks between Wellington and Gladstone streets.
The Bank Street Business Improvement Area (BIA) has replaced many of the old, three-sided, concrete-capped kiosks with slimmer, black-framed billboard. But the billboards, for the most part, are empty.
“They put them up but they never change anything,” said Harvey Dhillon, a manager at Silky Touch, one of the Bank Street stores with a new, empty kiosk directly in front.
He said nothing has changed with the kiosks for months.
According to Gerry LePage, executive director of the Bank Street BIA, the new billboards have been recently installed over a period of three months.
Pattison Outdoor Advertising won the contract to supply the new kiosks when the contract came up for tender last spring. Pattison is now responsible for installing and maintaining the advertising billboards.
LePage said advertising spaces in the kiosks, which generate revenue for the Bank Street BIA, can’t be filled until all of the new kiosks are installed, which should be by the end of January.
He said the few advertisements already in place are not there to make money, but to discourage graffiti.
“It’s a big graffiti billboard,” stated Valley Eagle, owner of Beaded Dreams, another Bank Street store with an empty kiosk in front.
“I think it’s an eyesore really if it’s left the way it is,” he said.
For some businesses, the kiosks are more than empty billboards, they’re a hazard to business.
“For us it’s a pain in the ass because it’s in front of our In-door,” said Bob Martineau, part-owner of Big Bud’s, a discount retail store on Bank Street.
Mike Martineau, also an owner of Big Bud’s, added that the angle of the kiosk makes it difficult for customers to get into the store. “We can live without it,” he said.
Although Pattison Outdoor Advertising is supposed to handle the stores’ concerns, the City of Ottawa is also involved since it agreed to let the Bank Street BIA place the kiosks in the public right-of-way.
“From the city perspective, we certainly want to be supportive of BIA efforts,” said Michael Murr, acting director of business development for the City of Ottawa.
Besides the empty spaces and awkward positioning, the kiosks are also illuminated, causing concern at a time when energy costs are on the rise.
This is unavoidable, explained Darrell Cox, a business development consultant with the city.
Since the kiosks were wired through the hydro system for the street lights, when the street lights go on, so do the kiosks — even when empty..
LePage is confident that the kiosk supplier will be able to handle stores’ concerns.
“Pattison is an excellent company in that regard,” he said.
The BIA does not have any plans to change the kiosks.
LePage says the BIA and the City of Ottawa are interested in using the 20 advertising spaces reserved for their own use to promote downtown businesses and events in Ottawa.