The Future Fix Podcast: Supporting Main Streets

The COVID-19 pandemic has been an existential threat to local businesses all over the country. In an effort to help these shops keep their doors open, governments, organizations, and Business Improvement Areas (BIAs) have had to get creative. In this episode, Canadian Urban Institute Senior Planner Ariana Holt talks about the Bring Back Main Street campaign.

We go to Belleville, Ontario, where the Digital Main Street initiative helped that town create the Downtown District Marketplace. Belleville Downtown Improvement Area Executive Director Marijo Cuerrier explains: “The marketplace is targeting mainly restaurants and retailers they are on a digital platform that is e-commerce enabled, and it allows people to shop in the downtown district at several different places at once and only have one cart.”

And Larry Burke, designer and board member of the Quinpool Road District Association in Halifax tells us all about Shop Quinpool Online virtual shopping mall. “The success of Quinpool as a destination is that people do like to come down the street, and a lot of our marketing, pre-COVID, was based on doing events. That’s part of what made Quinpool what it is. And so, obviously, this throws a big monkey wrench into that. But these are still retailers, they still have to sell product.”

Listen to the podcast for more about the Downtown District Marketplace and Quinpool Road.