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SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
The apparent downward spiral of Yellowknife's downtown business community is leaving residents with little choice but to take their business and their wallets uptown.

One of the many 'for lease' signs on display in front of downtown business storefronts. The Chamber of Commerce is calling for the city to take action to halt an exodus of businesses from Yellowknife's downtown core. - Sara Wilson/NNSL photo

Frustration with the lack of parking throughout the downtown core, high rental rates, policing and bureaucracy have left business owners, the city and the Chamber of Commerce all at a standoff.

Centre Square Mall – possibly the hardest hit by the new trend of moving uptown – is owned by Huntingdon Capital Corporation based in Vancouver and is currently offering leases on 10 empty spaces in the lower portion of the mall.

Last week, Harley's Trails End Boutique – the most recent tenant to leave the mall – packed up the remainder of its stock and moved to Old Airport Road, leaving behind the hurdles the downtown core presents.

The perceived lack of enforcement of intoxicated individuals, the use of illicit drugs, violence and general loitering are the major concerns that the Chamber of Commerce's members report.

"The Chamber of Commerce does not accept that it's OK for our downtown to be littered with folks that are drinking in the open," said Tim Doyle, executive director of the Chamber of Commerce. "Problems with fighting, spitting and pushing each other, harassing the residents that are just trying to go about their day, going to work or shopping, we don't accept it in any way shape or form."

Strong words from the chamber, and it's all in the hopes of initiating change.

The lack of a loitering bylaw has left its members at a loss and an inability to take control over the situation, Doyle said.

"If you have a shopkeeper who has drunk people hanging around the front step of their store, driving everybody else away, the shopkeeper does not have the right to call in municipal enforcement and say, 'Have these people removed for loitering,'" Doyle said.

Not an easy situation, and one the city has struggled with for years.

The decision to build a day shelter in the downtown core was initiated to help contain the activities of a portion of the downtown's population.

The addition to the downtown landscape is helping to curb the problem, said Yellowknife Mayor Gord Van Tighem.

"This is a more interesting scenario, since we have something called the Charter of Rights and Freedoms where there are things that can't be done that used to be done," Van Tighem said. "What we've chosen to do there is to provide healthy choices for people with our day shelter. What it has done is put them all in one area and out of the malls ... with the exception of a few places. Everybody has said good things about it."

Another issue plaguing city hall and Yellowknife's downtown businesses is a lack of available parking. With no open lots for downtown employees to use, it leaves potential customers and visitors frustrated with a lack of accessibility.

The city is currently preparing a report in conjunction with Ipsos Reid to find a solution to the problem and is seeking input from consumer groups and businesses alike. The results will be released in the coming weeks.

"The solution is to have more space available downtown. It's a city centre. Every city in the world has allocated parking areas," said Larry Jacquard, commercial account executive with Nunavut Insurance and president of the Chamber of Commerce. "People that work downtown don't have an allocated parking spot so they have to feed the meter. It's great to say take a bus or a bicycle or walk, but our Northern reality is that it's fine for the summer time, but at -40 C ... you can't except people to walk to work in downtown Yellowknife."

Instances of customers circling the downtown to find parking, and eventually giving up and going uptown are a big problem for the sustainability of businesses, Jacquard said.

According to the Chamber, high rental rates are a deterrent for most businesses downtown and a commitment from landlords to aggressively seek out tenants and provide an attractive offer is the next hurdle to entice them to return.

"What's it worth and how much does it cost? Right now we're in a downturn economy, business is very slow for everybody," Jacquard said. "You (could) do incentives like get three free months a year for the first three years, or something that doesn't cut into your price per square foot."

In order for the situation to reverse itself, a solid commitment between all stakeholders needs to be achieved before any progress can be made, and while programs – such as the city's eco-housing project and the Smart Growth Campaign – are in the works, businesses plagued by the problems need to come together an express their ideas on possible solutions, Van Tighem said.

"The downtown needs a champion, it needs a spark plug and it needs to be somebody that's involved," Van Tighem said. "When I was first getting involved in this line of work we were working on the downtown improvement plan and the hardest thing – 12 years ago – was to get the people who live downtown, work downtown, and own businesses downtown to come out and talk about it."

According to the Chamber, that just isn't the case. It describes city administration's efforts to promote business throughout the city as less than encouraging and cites the recent increase in the home-based business licence fee as the perfect example.

"We're really disappointed that the city councillors supported that," Doyle said. "It was very disappointing, they don't see the value that business brings to this community."

It is a recurring theme between the two parties because the city believes the increase in the cost of licence fees will help bring retail storefront businesses back to the downtown.

"If I can start a women's speciality store in my house, and I'm doing mail order sales or Internet sales, nobody is going to come to my house and there isn't going to be any extra traffic," Van Tighem said. "Why would I go downtown and open a store so that you can come in and pick through. So ... what do you want? Do you want an active and vibrant downtown or do you want to go to somebody's house?"

Van Tighem used the analogy of the costs associated with running a retail storefront business – the cost of buying the building or the monthly rental fee, maintaining the storefront and salaries for employees. He added that the same costs weren't shared for those running a home-based business.

"If the city puts up barriers for home-based business to start up, to see if their project is viable, they will never know if they can make it," Jacquard said.

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