By Nadine Blayney
Most Sparks Street retailers don’t want the benches, fountains and summer patios on their street replaced by parking spots, polluting cars and noisy buses.
Thirty merchants were surveyed by Centretown News and asked if they would prefer having cars or people as the main traffic on their street. An overwhelming 87 per cent want it to remain as is. Those who prefer a pedestrian mall say the idea to return to vehicular traffic could harm their business.
Michelle Fournier, of Albert Opticians, said a return of cars to Sparks Street would aggravate an existing parking problem.
“Being pedestrian actually helps business. It creates an atmosphere not seen anywhere else in the city.”
Ian Wright, owner of Snow Goose Canadian Arts and Crafts agreed. “If we have cars we become just like any other street,” adding the uniqueness of the street attracts people who just want to browse as well as those who know specifically what they want.
Though they are greatly outnumbered, there is a small group who want vehicles on the street. “Sparks Street was a novelty and it’s worn off. It’s time to try something new…business is not what it used to be,” said Jack Cook, owner of Canada’s Four Corners, a merchant on the street since 1968.
Herb Gosewich of Ritchie’s Sports-Fan Apparel shop said vehicular traffic would expose the street to more than just government workers and tourists.
“We see the same people 12 months a year, other people don’t know what’s here.”
There are obvious challenges of owning a business on the street, such as Ottawa winters and the opening of the Rideau Centre a few blocks away.
Though most retailers are confident there will never be parking meters on their street, some said change or renewal of some sort is needed to attract business.
“What we need is more advertising,” said Elie Braks, owner of Bello Uomo, a fine menswear shop on the street.
Despite nearly $6 million in 1989 to make the street more shopper friendly by adding fountains and benches, Sparks suffered. Some shops closed and others relocated to indoor malls. Stores were also starting to appear that weren’t in keeping with the tradition of high-quality shops that were on the street when it was first closed to traffic in 1967.
Bob Alyea has owned a jewelry store on Sparks Street for 38 years, remembers when Sparks Street was, “the place to shop in Ottawa.” He says quality stores – not cars – are needed to attract people to the mall year round.
“People won’t come down to Sparks from Kanata to buy cheap souvenirs,” said Alyea, referring to changes in the types of businesses that have replaced those who have left or closed.
Like others surveyed, Alyea wants the Sparks Street Improvement Area, a group for the street’s development to focus on maintaining it’s esthetics and improving the mix of business on the pedestrian street to attract people downtown to shop.
That is exactly what Mohammed Khiat of Gada Souvenirs wants.
“If cars are here we have no business, we don’t serve cars, we serve people!”