As an owner of a downtown business I want to know what they want 'em to market? Wasted low lifes? Vacant buildings? Pawn shops? Until the city loses the politically correct BS & gets rid of the scum & the businesses/social agencies that cater to them NOBODY is going to start coming downtown no matter how glossy the brochure is.

Get rid of the scum?

When are you going to leave, then?

Every Saturday morning during the summer, i.e. NOW, the downtown at 3rd and George is packed with people shopping. Why, the Farmer's Market that's why. Interestingly, this market is opposite the needle exchange, but people still pack the market and the coffee shop and are not repulsed by the social support services for addicts.

My point? Downtown is empty because it doesn't give shoppers what they want - services. If you provide what people want to buy they will go. Stop blaming poor people and look in a mirror. The market proves people are willing to go downtown to shop when they get what they want. Provide it or stop bitching.

When is this Council and its various subsidiaries going to do the work in house rather than continue to hire "consultants" from outside this City?

How many such reports do we have sitting on the shelves and why did they fail?

$145,000????? .... That's a lot of money for "marketing".

Do we not have Initiatives PG. Can't they do what their title says and take the Initiative once and for all themselves rather than pawning it off to another firm?

Harris is a planning firm. Harris is an econimic development firm.

We are supposed to have a City Planning Department and an Economic Development office.

We have neither!!!!!!

This is most certainly not Richmond! Nor is it North Vancouver! Nor is it UNBC!

This is the downtown of a City which has been struggling since the crash of 1981 to maintain its population base and has been able to do so by diversifying to provide education services and call centres to cover for the job loss in the forest industry which has become more and more automated.

It is easy to market and plan for a community which is vibrant and which will succeed whether "marketed" or not.

I notice from their site that they purportedly carried out "downtown revitalization strategies" projects. There are no examples on the site. I wonder if anyone might know where these were done?

http://www.harrisconsults.com/

Witty comeback.

Anyway, as another year is upon us, another expensive study by some consulting firm to try and figure out how to market the downtown.

To Harris Consulting, I have some slogans to help you with your work...

"The Downtown: They're not drunks, they're just 'sober-challenged'."

"The Downtown: Don't let all the vacant buildings fool you... this is a happening place!"

"The Downtown: All the fistfights you can handle after 3:00 a.m.!"

Well said Ammonra!

The problem is how does one gt that first individual to come back downtown?

Who are the people who would shop downtown and what are they looking for?

Definitely those who go the the farmers' market.

And how will you keep them there in the winter? Most retail cannot survive on a seasonal basis.

Anyway, the questions are many and I think that a start would be to ask the right questions.

One obvious one is, where is there a city in a similar situation as Prince George is in, including climate, and have they had a successful turnaround.

I suggest looking at three or four Canadian cities in the mid west and maritimes as well as midwestern states. One may be able to find a "little miracle" and use some of their tactics.

Death to Socialism is right on. People have to have the feeling they are out to spend-and I would not even consider stopping downtown with any disposable cash in my pocket. I will hit for the safety and security of a mall-thank you.
Time to say "so long" to Offet, as he certainly has not been a benefit to this city. Anybody see him on council? He can talk, and when he is finished, he has basically said sweet nothing. Is he earning his pay for the purpose of carrying out the job description he was hired for? NO WAY. And get a new crew into Planning.
We have been dealing with these lost causes for in excess of 20 years. Murray Krause is the only happy face downtown. He has gotten his "bleeding heart" projects all well set up. Now he only has the Backpacker Motel to get set up for the homeless. Will it end up as a "Mission accomplished?" Residents in that area will be the next to gather the needles, and keeping busy locking themselves in, and installing outside lights and alarms.
Please let the next civic election bring forth some deserving candidates who will be capable of making changes at this city hall.
I know all the ones I will not vote for, but I do not have a single name yet that will qualify for my X.
I believe it is time to start from scratch!!!!

I have never been to SOuth Carolina. Perhaps someone here can fill me in about the actual size of the surrounding region of Greenville which is about 2 hours from Atlanta, Georgia.

Look at the site I linked and see if this is what people here want the downtown of Prince George to be like.

The key to me is the attraction of modern businesses to the community, businesses who would normally locate in places such as Vancouver but are able to just as easily locate in a place such as PG these days due to better communication technology and potentially good travel connection between here and Edmonton, Calgary, Vancouver - We are one hour flying time from all three if that is where the associated businesses are.

The population of Greenville is 56,000 .. I suspect the CMA is probably at about twice that size.

Here is the city's statistical info page:

http://www.greatergreenville.com/development/facts.asp

Here is the downtown revitalization page ....

http://www.greatergreenville.com/development/dt_rev.asp

Could this be PG in 2020?? .... if so, what do we need to do to get there???

Hint ..... it takes more than removing needles from the street ..... if people keep using that as an excuse, we will never get there!!

So I was way off base in the CMA guesstimate ...
more like 400,000 to 500,000 ....

but Greenville is the centre of that, and seems to be successful in that venture ... the principles of attracting people to downtown would be similar .... attract businesses to the City!! without that, downtown will continue to be the poor cousin of places being developed outside of downtown ...

http://www.greatergreenville.com/development/dt_business.asp

AMMONRA - Our business is highly succesful INSPITE of the SCUM. To answer your first question - As soon as freakin' possible.

So it sounds as if your business is not yet successful enough to operate from digs which have a higher rental cost. Why else would you be in downtown?

Here are a couple of previous reports about downtown.

http://www.initiativespg.com/ipg/business/default.asp?TID=03061717105916&CID=03061717513483:&Event=Details&Params=NewsID:132;

For those of you who might be into detail, if you look at "A Time for Action", it is not a readable document since the pages are all out of order. Is it any wonder Innitiatives PG is getting nowhere if that is the quality of the work they accept and put out for professionals who want to do business with this city.

And here I thought that the City was an active member of the Quality Council or whatever the name is. Makes one wonder if they even understand the meaning of the word.

So, have any of the recommendations been acted on? If so, were they successful? If not, why were they not acted on?

I am beginning to suspect that the reason for one study after another is because that way the recommendations do not get acted on and assessed. Things just get shoved aside and in the meantime the downtown withers away.

There should be some sort of state of the union address at least once a year so that our elected official can be held accountable on a tighter reign. Three years is far too long.

IMO from talking to the city councilors, Dan Rogers is the only one that has a vision for PG. The rest we could do with out.

Offet is a waste of our tax dollars. Ditto for his organization Initiatives PG paid for by PG taxpayers. He is an outsider with no vision for PG other than call centers subsidized with our tax dollars.

As for the downtown, Kirk Gable said recently that only after we have a vibrant downtown can PG grow. I think he has it completely backwards. PG needs to grow its assets and the spin off will rise all ships including the downtown.

Take out the blight of downtown and PG is a very beautifull city that is unique and unmatched anywhere in the world. Unfortunately for PG the downtown is what our image is built around and that is defeatist considering the shape it is in.

PG is a truck and car town. Period. We don't have the critical mass for a vibrant transit system and we are limited to a persons ability to park in front of a store in the downtown in the winter.

The downtown will never have the critical mass it requires unless we have a vibrant mass transit system. A vibrant mass transit system will only come with the urbanization of greater PG outside of the downtown, and this urbanization will only take place if the focus is on the quality of life in other parts of PG where future residents will want to call home.

I suggest the Destiny 2010 initiative taken by the state of Maine as a prime example of what PG should be doing to grow its roots so that we can have the critical mass to become a world class city.

http://www.downeastrcd.com/DESTINY%202010%20Final.pdf
Substitute Downest Maine for PG and you have a relevant top notch report for free.

The focus clearly needs to change from the downtown to the city center and the urbanization of greater PG via quality of life issues, and promotion of what makes PG unique.

I'll be the first to admit that every person from outside of PG that you talk to will say first thing they think of when they think of PG is that its downtown is disgusting. This is how they percieve all of PG. This is clearly a problem, but not a problem that will be solved overnight with a magic report. Its an image problem for the city not the downtown.

Lets focus on the things that truely define PG.

As for the social problems I would argue that it is not a local problem, but rather a regional problem that comes with being a regional center. There is a large gap between the haves and the have nots in Northern BC and the downtown of PG is a natural bi-product of that. These people are not going to go back to Burns Lake, or Fort Ware, or Fort St John, or Prince Rupert, or where ever else they came from if they have nothing to look forward to.

Time Will Tell

I should add that VANOC took me to court for suggesting that an initiative simmilar to Destiny 2010 (completely unrelated to Olympics or sports) could be done in Northern BC.

Unfortunately Pat Bell and Gordon Campbell supported VANOC.

I am the registered trademark holder of Eco-tourism 2010 and still plan to impliment my plan, I just won't be able to register it in BC under the trademark I hold. I still have the right to use of the term.

I should also add that the VANOC rip-off of my Eco-tourism 2010 idea Spirit of 2010 they call it recently recieved over $2 Million dollars from the provincial and federal governments to build hiking trails and lookout points for the community of Christina Lake in the South Kooteny region. Good for them, what about us. What is our legacy for the North?

some good stuff chadermando ...

I think as far as our legacy for the North goes ...
how about using the parking lot a Forest for the World as a viewing area to see the northern lights .... and on the days when it is too cloudy, we can install some lasers at UNBC to play off the low clouds ..

many people will not be able to tell the difference .....

;-)

This is absolutely appalling and one can only hope enough voters hear about it that it makes a difference when everyone goes to the polls to vote for city council this fall.

Why is that Prince George is continually in the market to buy more studies? This city has been studied to death. It is time for action. The article on Opinion 250 states the rich $145,000 contract initiated by Initiatives PG (another waste of money) will generate a marketing plan for the city, who will deliver that plan?

Remember this Prince George, when you vote for your next council.

The only initiative I've gotten form this Offet and his Initiatives Prince George is to get out of business in this city. So many business people have become pretty damn despondent because of the stinking attitude of the powers that be at City Hall.
Another $145,000.00 of our tax dollars down the tube. Don't they realize who actually pays for this garbage so called "study?"
Bruce High can tell us what the problems are downtown, but better to drive him out of business than pay attention to his suggestions.
Possibly Prince George has some hope of recovery, but not one iota of any successes can be attributed to these powers that be at Prince George City Hall.
It is time for a "fresh start" and I sincerely hope the residents of this city are paying close attention this fall when it comes time to go to the polls.
It will be "vision this" and "vision that" as they blithely go on with their "blinders" in place, and spinning us with their accomplishments.
Pay attention-or suffer the consequences.
We need hard action-not their so called "visions."

We don't need to "market" downtown, we need to change it! People need a reason to go downtown after 4 pm. We need upscale residence areas downtown. An evening market. A theatre or playhouse(s). The few restaurants that have succeeded downtown have done so in spite of the area. We need coffeehouses that are open past 4:00. We need a reason, not a logo. Every downtown has its share of street people, "cleaning up" isn't going to improve anything if there's still no point in going there. 4th Ave is nice, but only for a block. No, we don't need someone to sell our downtown to us. We need someone to rebuild it. Someone to put in a grocery store in place of the 4th Ave parkade. Someone to open a huge market and mixed residential like The Forks in Winnipeg, and have a scenic walkway all the way through downtown, one that's closed to traffic. We need a huge playground next to the market so families will have a reason to venture forth. UNBC and CNC should collaborate on a downtown student residence and have transportation to the campuses. These ideas aren't new. But I'll take the city's $100,000 for my time, thanks! What are they waiting for??

Well, well, Mom22, I can just visualize those shoppers trucking aroung downtown on foot at Minus 20 or 30. Afraid not!!!
As to your gigantic market-what is being marketed???
The playground sounds just too too ridiculous. Looking for a freebee babysitting area, as a playground for your purpose would have to be supervised with trained staff.A really silly suggestion. As to student residences, just what will these students do for relaxation and entertainment in this environment??? Shop at the market?? And transportation arrangements. Some students may not even have an early morning class, but have to sit around the university in wait-or find alternate transportation???
Yep, you could probably get $100,000.00 out of the city for your suggestions. They are accustomed to paying for just such foolishness!!! Good luck. Guess it was worth taking a shot at!!!!

And your ideas are ...? I guess you've never been to places where this kind of thing can work. Such as Winnipeg. Where there's a giant indoor market that people head to in yup, you guessed it, winter! Where there's a children's museum beside it, and gasp! the parents supervise their own children! And, oh my word! They have buses that go there so people can come and go as they please if they don't have vehicles! Get off your high horse and grab an ounce of courtesy. The only suggestion I see that you've made is to vote out city council. I don't see that you've got any ideas, and there's no need to slam those of us who do. Or did I miss something and personally offend you with my ideas? At least I've got some.

Gosh, mom22, is everyone from Winnipeg on the defensive to the degree you have displayed.
I just thought it a bit ridiculous and totally out of context to suggest Prince George was in the same class with their 70,000 population in comparison to Winnipeg with their 667.209, (oops, less a couple that probably are employed by the city of Prince George).
Sure, I have a couple suggestions. Clean it up, or tear it down!!
Soup kitchens, needle exchanges, homeless shelters, thrift shops, pawn shops, and pan handlers do not a city make!!!!
I personally have been to markets you, in all liklihood, will never get to see. Does not make much difference when I reside in a city that prefers to wallow in a reputation of muck and mire.
I speak with a few visitors, and I have yet to hear one kind word spoken with reference to our downtown. People seem to visit this city for such short periods and I pity those who fancy Prince George as being a tourist destination in the foreseeable future.
You really should apply for that 100 grand. This Mayor and Council just might give it to you!!!! What are you waiting for???

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