dave mah photo + PG City Centre marketing logos in img archive jan 22 folder
The City of Prince George took its effort to revitalize the downtown to the next stage on Friday, releasing a colourful marketing kit meant to help attract investors.
After introducing a special policing unit to increase safety and starting a clean-up program last year, the city is turning its attention to the practical matter of trying to attract more housing and retail businesses to the challenged downtown core.
Mayor Dan Rogers said he expects the marketing materials to produce results in attracting new tenants to downtown, but also in helping to change the perception of the downtown.
"Its common to say you're open for business - we're kicking down the door," Rogers told reporters at the launch of the new marketing plan.
The 16-page glossy, magazine-like package provides basic information on the downtown's boundaries and key public and private projects already underway. Those include the recently-approved $39-million replacement RCMP building and a $3.25 million retrofit to create the Commonwealth Health Centre.
The marketing material also attempts to explain the city's renewed vision for downtown hammered out during a provincially-sponsored Smart Growth exercise in 2009.
For example, the kit says the River Park catalyst district will be a high-density mixed residential and commercial area surrounding the Civic Centre and its plaza.
The kit also includes a stylized Prince George city centre logo, and highlights more than one dozen city-owned land parcels available for development.
The marketing strategy also highlights the city as host of the 2015 Canada Winter Games, which Rogers said adds urgency to the city's downtown revitalization plans.
Rogers said he'd like to see the first gold medal of the Winter Games handed out in downtown Prince George. He's optimistic people will be impressed by changes to the city's core, viewing it as vibrant and active.
The marketing kit will be available to local property owners, developers and realtors, as well as the city and its agencies.
The city is putting its new marketing kit to use immediately at the International Council of Shopping Centres conference this weekend in Whistler. Another 70 marketing kits are being sent to Vancouver developers.
Initiatives Prince George official Kathie Scouten cautioned the results of the marketing effort will not be seen immediately, likely taking up to two years.
Heather Oland, a representative of the Downtown Business Improvement Association, said she would consider the marketing initiative successful if two or three significant anchor tenants were attracted.
One of those anchor tenants would be a grocery store, the type of amenity needed to attract people to live downtown, said Oland.
The marketing kit is part of a larger effort to improve the downtown that came out of a 2009 mayor's task force, which includes ongoing work to create development incentives. The task force evolved into Downtown Partnerships, now a permanent committee of the city.
The latest effort follows numerous unsuccessful plans to revitalize the downtown, including at least three major efforts in the past two decades, which were outlined in a 2009 Citizen investigation.
Initiatives Prince George, the city's economic development agency, took the lead on the development of the marketing kit. The work was funded with $50,000 from the sale last year of the ACS call centre building, owned by the economic development agency.
