Business owners in Canmore are working on a plan to revitalize their downtown area.
Despite $130 million worth of commercial development in the past decade, about ten per cent of downtown commercial space is sitting empty.
Business owner Greg Bury worries the empty shops will scare off customers who might think the town is having economic troubles.
"I think this town is full right now in terms of what the marketplace wants," Bury told CBC News. "And for us to continue to just throw stores out there – like throwing a dart on a dart board and hoping that something good happens is a very scary business proposition."
Leah Kendal, one of the area's largest property developers, says he has about 13 vacant stores downtown.
He says development outside the town centre has significantly hurt the town's retail core, while others blame high rents for the vacancies.
To fight the problem, a group of the town's concerned business owners have formed what they call a business revitalization zone.
Sean Meggs, a local business owner and chair of the new group, says store owners have been struggling for more than a decade to get the municipal government to commit to redeveloping the downtown.
Meggs says the revitalization group is working on its own plan.
The plan includes aesthetic work like burying overhead wires, installing new lighting and benches as well as improving traffic flow. The costs would be split between business owners and the town.
"We're talking about working out a formula with the town as to a reasonable split as to what businesses would pay and what the town would pay," Meggs says.
Canmore Mayor Ron Casey says no amount of redesign will fix the problem. He says Canmore is simply overdeveloped commercially and until tourism rebounds to what it was before Sept. 11, there won't be enough demand to fill the vacancies.
Town council would still have to approve the plan that could cost the town as much as $8 million.
www.cbc.ca
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