Downtown Business Association Survey Results Revealed
Posted: Thursday, February 24th 2011
In late 2010, the Downtown Business Association presented a survey to business owners, downtown workers and everyone else interested in the downtown. The survey was developed this survey to help set future directions of downtown developments and projects. Here are some of the results of this survey.
The downtown is seen as a clean, well lit area of town and a majority of people see snow clearing on sidewalks and roads in the downtown as adequate. A majority have also noticed a substantial decrease in graffiti in the downtown.
There is a strong preference to support local and downtown business, with 98% of respondents preferring to support local business and 76% preferring to support downtown business. It was identified that people do like coming downtown for the high quality restaurants, live music and theatre. A majority of people who responded would come downtown more regularly to shop if more businesses were open in the evenings and if there were more live performances.
Strong support for increased downtown residential spaces was also a raised, with half of the people polled saying that they would consider moving downtown if there were more condominium purchase options in the downtown area. A strong recognition for the need for residential areas to improve safety in the downtown was also raised.
The survey found that there is overwhelming support of the Downtown Ambassador program, with people feeling that they are a valuable asset for tourists and visitors and contribute to a positive image of the downtown.
Making the downtown a destination through events and festivals was also identified as very important, with a strong majority of people surveyed think that our downtown events such as the Downtown and Public Markets, Fiestaval and CentreFest, being seen as significant reasons for coming downtown and important aspects of downtown life.
We would like to thank everyone who took our survey, the results are helping us to set some directions within the organization and identify the needs of our downtown. We feel that the results will help us work towards developing a downtown that our residents can enjoy.
