'The downtown represents the spirit of the city': Local groups calling for downtown revitalization with major catalyst projects
Three downtown business organizations are advocating for the City of Regina to locate a new multi-purpose events centre and central library branch in the downtown core.
Regina's Downtown Business Improvement District (BID), Warehouse District, and Chamber of Commerce brought in an expert from New York as part of a speaker series. The Transform Downtown luncheons are aimed at transforming the city’s core.
“The downtown represents to the rest of the world the spirit of the overall city and indeed of a province,” said former International Downtown Association chair Tim Tompkins. “It is the economic driver. It’s where the tax base is and it can help support and pay for the services that the entire city needs.”
As the former president of the Times Square Alliance in New York City, Tompkins was a part of the revitalization Times Square has undergone in the last 20 years.
In his presentation Friday, he said thriving culture, art, and economy is what will bring people to the city centre.
“Half of it is simply celebrating what you’ve got,” said Tompkins. “This is a place that has great bones, great history and an enthusiastic set of people, entrepreneurs and creators that want to make things happen.”
To do this, the business districts are calling for at least two of the five proposed major catalyst projects to be located downtown.
“If not now, when?” asked Judith Veresuk, Downtown BID executive director. “With the interest of the library and an arena, all of those coming together in the last year makes downtown the place to be.”
“Fundamentally, we need people downtown whether they’re coming to visit from outside the city, from inside the city in the suburbs or live downtown” said Mayor Sandra Masters. “People are life.”
Masters said smaller cultural and artistic projects are easier to execute in the short term, but long term, the city needs the larger projects to keep visitors and residents coming back.
“Hopefully their experience on the smaller, more personal level is positive and it creates a habit of coming into our downtown.”
The city said it is continuing to look for ways to invest into downtown, looking at other centres for inspiration.
“The things people interact with are similar around the world,” said Masters. “Some of the things that draw people in a focused way are real opportunities for us.”
“The momentum that we all saw during the world juniors in Halifax and Moncton, that have downtown arenas, those things are achievable here,” said Veresuk. “The vibrancy in the downtown is something we can replicate.”
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
Bodies found by U.S. authorities searching for missing B.C. kayakers
United States authorities who have been searching for a pair of missing kayakers from British Columbia since the weekend have recovered two bodies in the nearby San Juan Islands of Washington state.
Amid concerns over 'collateral damage' Trudeau, Freeland defend capital gains tax change
Facing pushback from physicians and businesspeople over the coming increase to the capital gains inclusion rate, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his deputy Chrystia Freeland are standing by their plan to target Canada's highest earners.
'It's discriminatory': Individuals refused entry to Ontario legislature for wearing keffiyeh
Individuals being barred from entering Ontario’s legislature while wearing a keffiyeh say the garment is part of their cultural identity— and the only ones making it political are the politicians banning it.
BREAKING Mounties will not be charged in shooting death of B.C. Indigenous man
Three Mounties in British Columbia will not face charges in the killing of a 38-year-old Indigenous man on Vancouver Island in 2021.
Canada's favourite sport to watch is hockey, survey shows
The 2024 Stanley Cup playoffs have already delivered a fever level of fan excitement in Canada.
Douglas DC-4 plane with 2 people on board crashes into river outside Fairbanks, Alaska
A Douglas C-54 Skymaster airplane crashed into the Tanana River near Fairbanks on Tuesday, Alaska State Troopers said.
Tom Mulcair: Park littered with trash after 'pilot project' is perfect symbol of Trudeau governance
Former NDP leader Tom Mulcair says that what's happening now in a trash-littered federal park in Quebec is a perfect metaphor for how the Trudeau government runs things.
'It's just so hard to let it go': Umar Zameer still haunted by death of Toronto police officer
“It's just so hard to let it go. I mean, everyone is telling me, ‘you have to move on,’ but I know someone is not here [anymore]. So I don't know how I will move on." That’s what Umar Zameer, the man recently acquitted in the death of a Toronto police officer, told CTV News Toronto in a sit-down interview on Tuesday.
NASA hears from Voyager 1, the most distant spacecraft from Earth, after months of quiet
NASA has finally heard back from Voyager 1 again in a way that makes sense. The most distant spacecraft from Earth hadn't sent home any understandable data since last November.