Is downtown really that crummy?

Listening to Christian Provenzano, you’d think Queen Street is so shabby these days we should just rent it out it as a permanent filming location for The Walking Dead.

“Our downtown is sad,” Provenzano said during last week’s Sault Ste. Marie Chamber of Commerce mayoral candidates debate. “Our downtown is getting sadder. We recently let a number of PUC jobs leave the downtown core. St. Mary's College will soon be leaving the downtown core. There is less and less activity downtown year over year,” he said.

Is downtown Sault Ste. Marie really that bad?

Provenzano’s biting criticism of the Sault’s core prompted little protest from other mayoral candidates during the televised debate.

Mayor Debbie Amaroso, who referred to Provenzano as “my friend to the right” during the debate and never once addressed him by his actual name, offered little more than a quick remark that the Sault actually does have a downtown revitalization strategy that’s shown “some great private investments” and offers opportunities for cultural involvement by youth and postsecondary institutions.

To be fair, Provenzano offered his remarks about downtown during time allotted for rebuttals, avoiding any meaningful chance for his opponents to respond.

“I can tell you that I certainly heard some things tonight that were simply not based in fact and time does not allow for you to refute every statement that is made,” Amaroso said later in the debate.

“The job around this table tonight is to paint a picture of gloom. That's how people run elections…. There's been a lot of comments about what hasn't been done, and some of that information is misleading to the public. So I really encourage you to check out the information that you heard tonight. Make sure that it is based in fact.”

Okay, but when SooToday.com approached the Downtown Association for that purpose, all we got was a terse “no comment” and denial of our request for access to association-collected historical data on store openings and closings.

The Downtown Association, a city-created association that’s funded by tax levies collected by the municipality from downtown businesses and that prides itself on having a good working relationship with the city, is reluctant to enter the fray of a hotly contested election campaign.

But that’s hardly true of Judy Hupponen, a Ward 3 council candidate.

The soft-spoken proprietor of North Star Travel Plus at 794 Queen Street East has emerged as the core area’s most stalwart champion in this election.

”I believe that the Downtown Association has done an amazing job with our downtown area,” Hupponen says. “My business is in the downtown area, and over the years we have seen improvements. I know we have a ways to go, but we have had some great accomplishments.”

“Every year I see new ideas and more and more things happening in the downtown area and more and more people coming to the downtown area. The boardwalk, in my opinion, is second to none.”

Another downtown defender is Ward 4 incumbent Lou Turco, who lives in the core with his wife, Sandra, who’s seeking a fifth term on the Huron Superior Catholic District School Board.

“We understand the challenges that the downtown area has posed,” Turco said in the Ward 4 debate. “But certainly in the last 14 years that I've been on council, we've addressed that in numerous ways.”

“We've extended the boundary by the way,” Turco pointed out. “For years, we always thought that the downtown area was from East Street to Dennis Street.... But now, a new boundary involves the East End toward the old Plummer Hospital site.”

The other Ward 4 incumbent, Rick Niro, is also optimistic that our core area will overcome what he sees as “significant issues.” Niro pointed out that the western boundary of the downtown, as defined in the Sault’s corporate strategic plan, was also moved in recent months to include the Gore Street area.

“The recently approved funding by FedNor will go a long way toward helping to achieve streetscape improvements for Gore Street, and budget-depending, a street furniture upgrade for parts of Queen Street,” Niro said. “It is also anticipated that this funding will serve as a catalyst for significant sector investment in the downtown.”

Niro worked on establishing the first police Neighbourhood Resource Centre on Gore Street. “It's the first step. Hopefully it helps curb crime. The first reports are that it is working,” he said.

Derelict buildings are also a problem, according to Niro. In the last year or so, the city has ordered demolition of four or five buildings in the Gore Street area, he said. “If we're going to develop something, first we have to clean it up.”

“The resource centre on Gore Street is a welcome addition,” says Lorena Tridico, the former Ward 4 councillor who’s running again. Tridico said she’s concerned that the new centre is open only from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. We need to encourage the police to operate something in that area between, let’s say the hours of 7 p.m. and 7 a.m. when crime rates are high.” Tridico said.

Tridico also praised a downtown business incubator introduced by Ward 2 incumbent Terry Sheehan and the Sault Ste. Marie Economic Development Corporation.

Also running in Ward 4 is Luke Dufour, who argues that there should be a city councilor on the board of the Downtown Association. “With the Canal District redevelopment, with other developments happening in the downtown, we need to have people who are able to critically ask the questions of how we can really support the people downtown.”

Adds Dufour: “In my opinion, the biggest barrier to young entrepreneurs downtown right now is the high rate of taxes on downtown buildings. Currently, the city administers a tax rebate fund to vacant buildings in the downtown area. That is incentivizing not having tenants for the whole year. I think that city council really needs to look at retooling the vacancy rebate program to allow for a decrease on taxes on downtown businesses.”

Dufour says business owners tell him they need more than just tax incentives. “They need more help from city services,” he said. “Many of them have complained about having difficulty contacting the right people about the right job, and we need to better streamline the availability of our city services to the developers and the business owners in these areas.”

Out in Ward 1, Andy Martens has a Martensque proposal for downtown development. “We should try and limit people moving out of the downtown core because everybody that moves out, the replacement is that much harder to back into the downtown core,” Martens said. He didn’t specify the mechanism by which the good people downtown might be restrained.

Ward 1 incumbent Steve Butland, meanwhile, is singing the praises of Sheehan’s incubator initiative. “The downtown incubator is a very positive step. It's business and government working together that will work,” Butland said.

Butland also lauded recent façade-improvement grants and welcomed Algoma University students at the downtown Windsor Park residence. The downtown isn’t thriving but “it's doing better than it was a few years ago,” he said.

Fellow Ward 1 incumbent Paul Christian wants to see the city designate its downtown as a heritage site. The area has been recognized as a gathering-place for centuries and “I think that might create an opportunity to grow the downtown core with federal and provincial funding,” Christian said.

”My vision for the downtown would be to have more green space and more recreational opportunities in the downtown core. We have a new bike park that's going in near the bridge. Those types of things need to be incorporated in our growth going forward.”

Ward 1 candidate Christopher Newman suggested that the city might look at buying core-area land for beautification purposes.

Another Ward 1 candidate, Derek Crowell, expressed concern that in recent years the city has increasingly allowed business to locate on Great Northern Road.

“This is something that's starting to create a vacuum in the downtown. We've really got to be careful. We've got St. Mary's College leaving the downtown area…. Right now we've got two anchors at either end, with the Mill Market at the old St. Mary's Paper and with this new Riverwalk Development condo development at the old hospital site. Now what we do between those two locations is the key. I think we've got to look at potentially offering tax incentives or a special tax rate for the downtown,” Crowell said.

In Ward 2, incumbent Terry Sheehan wants to persuade Algoma University to increase its footprint downtown. “We have that residence at the former Windsor Park Hotel and it is great. There's energy. There's vibrancy there,” Sheehan said.

“I put forward a resolution recently to take a look at a comprehensive student housing plan. That's bringing all the community members together. You know, the neighbours, the entrepreneurs, the developers, the university, the college, the city. Let's take a look at our downtown. There's empty buildings. Empty facilities. Bring in those incentives for apartment dwelling and have opportunities for people to live downtown.”

Susan Myers, the other Ward 2 incumbent, is excited about the Riverwalk development. “Having people reside within close proximity to the downtown is critical to the vibrancy and the health and the strength,” Myers said, adding that “we need to support the downtown retail and services that exist there.”

Ward 2 candidate John Duke is concerned about the loss of downtown schools, both St. Mary’s College and Étienne Brûlé Public School. “The way to keep people engaged is to have smaller schools where the services are better, where kids can foster better relationships with not only their peers but their teachers,”Duke said.

“I think that council needs to lobby the school boards to keep the schools that we have downtown open or reopen some of the schools. Kids are bussed an hour to school in some parts of the city. It's just not feasible. And I think we need to stop the outflow of business from the downtown core to the northern parts of the city. We need to make it beneficial for business to be in the downtown area,” Duke said.

One other Ward 2 candidate, Micheal Selvers, proposed that the way to save the downtown is to get everyone to source out local products and stop shopping at Walmart. “Your money's getting directly shipped overseas and we will lose the downtown core,“ Selvers said. “One time, we had two Zellers and a Kmart. It's all been since replaced by Walmart. The downtown core can't compete with cheap-made goods.”

In Ward 3, two new councillors will be chosen to replace incumbents Pat Mick and Brian Watkins, neither of whom are seeking re-election.

Matthew Shoemaker proposed looking into feasibility of putting a municipal skating rink in the marina between Roberta Bondar tent pavilion and Docks Riverfront Grill. “If that water was brought down to a reasonable level and it could freeze all the way through, it could create a very big municipal skating rink,” he said.

Shoemaker says the city's contribution to the new Sault Area Hospital has been paid off and he called for those funds to now be reinvested in downtown revitalization. “I think what's taking place at the Mill Market is something that we should shape an entire area, the downtown, after…. This is what our entire downtown needs to be.”

Another Ward 3 candidate, Luke Macmichael, said great things are happening with the Mill Market and the Farmer's Market, but he’d like to see more attention paid to organic farming and urban agriculture. “There's many areas down there that could use community gardens,” Macmichael said.

One final Ward 3 candidate, David Poluck, called for tax incentives allowing business owners to reinvest into their buildings and businesses. “The uptown, which is up in the Ward 3 area, has grown exponentially over the last few years. And the downtown core will slowly come back. It's going to take time.”

The downtown doesn’t seem to be a major issue in Wards 5 and 6, if time devoted to the issue in last week’s debate is any indication.

“I think we're on the right track on Gore Street,” said Ward 5 incumbent Marchy Bruni. “We have the police satellite office. Personally I would like to see the hours extended.”

“There's issues right now with the downtown,” adds the other Ward 5 incumbent, Frank Fata. “We've set up the satellite office. I think I've talked to the constable there at least three times already. They seem to be very excited about what is happening downtown, the way that the problems that existed are being addressed. It seems that we're making progress. We've got business incubators that are now being set up downtown. This is something that will help small business,” Fata said.

Back in the mayoral race, candidate Heather Cook called for discounts for small businesses moving downtown, while Robin Coull questioned why the Michigan Sault’s downtown is busier than ours on the weekend.

Christian Provenzano concedes that there’s a downtown initiative underway in the Sault.

“But I think it's sorely missing the mark,” he said. I've lived in a number of communities. I've lived in Toronto. I've lived in Halifax. I've lived in Ottawa. Every vibrant city I've lived in had a vibrant downtown.

“My vision of this community would again have a vibrant downtown. We have to start from the Canal District Development Project and we have to move out,” Provenzano said.

Last week’s debate was sponsored by the Sault Ste. Marie Chamber of Commerce, Algoma University, Shaw Cable and Local 2.

Election day is Monday, October 27, 2014.

The photo gallery below was taken during a walk through part of the downtown on Queen Street between Gore and Pim Streets.

(PHOTO: A sign on the front door of Planetary Pride, 372 Queen Street East, seen Friday, October 10, 2014. David Helwig/SooToday)