The Downtown Windsor Business Revitalization Association (DWBRA) is putting out a call to action to community members, businesses, and stakeholders to unite and contribute to the revitalization of Windsor's core.
The Our Downtown campaign was launched Friday and aims to raise awareness of the Strengthen the Core--Downtown Windsor Revitalization Plan.
The plan was unveiled Apr. 23 after months of public surveys and consultations with stakeholders and the public to address concerns related to the city centre.
To address concerns, seven action items were identified:
1) Safe Streets: Create and implement a strong enforcement-focused strategy to support safer streets
2) High Standards: Increase enforcement of property standards and fill vacant buildings.
3) Healthy Spaces: Lobby upper levels of government to support wrap-around relief programs for vulnerable community members.
4) Place-Making: Encourage people and businesses to locate downtown.
5) Vibrant District: Create vibrancy by attracting and engaging residents and visitors.
6) ‘Our Downtown’: Enhance community engagement and implement a marketing strategy to celebrate and promote the core.
7) Stronger Together: Convene a table designed to improve collaboration, trust-building, and open communication between mental health and addictions service provider leadership, and all relevant stakeholders.
The plan will go before city council on Monday May. 13.
Chris MacLeod, chair, DWBRA says this is a watershed moment for downtown.
"Our association has been working on this for a year and a half and all of our efforts have gone into how do we make our downtown safer, cleaner and more enjoyable for everybody in the city. The seven point plan that was presented by the mayor is the culmination of that activity, along with the strategy corp assessment that was done of our city and these are the plans to put into action to change our downtown."
He says the DWBRA has been talking to residents and stakeholders across the city who say this plan needs to happen.
"We need to have our downtown and if we lose our downtown, it's just going to be ward 2 and ward 4 and other wards that are going to fall next so this is our moment to stop what's been happening downtown and shake a change in our trajectory."
MacLeod says a promotional element to the campaign will be launched as well.
"We're looking to get in front of as many eyes throughout our community as we can. So you're going to see it on Facebook, you're going to see through promotional material throughout our downtown, you're going to see billboards around downtown. What we're looking for everybody to do is go to strengthenthecore.ca and vote for our downtown."
The online petition for residents and business owners can be found here: strengthenthecore.ca.