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BIA launches survey about downtown Kincardine
By Liz Dadson

Kincardine Council

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The Kincardine Business Improvement Area (BIA) wants to know what you think of downtown Kincardine.

To do that, it has launched a community survey to find out what the public's perception is of the downtown core.

Jacqueline Faubert, survey administrator and BIA economic development chairperson, outlined this to Kincardine council at its meeting Wednesday night (Jan. 27).

She explained that the survey stems from the BIA's pro-vitalization strategy, initiated two years ago. Drawing from the recommendations regarding marketing the downtown and encouraging economic development, the BIA is inviting the community to comment on its perception of the downtown and its involvement in the downtown.

The survey was made possible through a grant from the Bruce Community Futures Development Corporation. Faubert said the grant is also funding a survey of downtown business people to find out their current situation and their plans for the future. This will be compiled into a business retention and expansion analysis/strategy for the downtown.

Working with Faubert on this project is research assistant Kylie Pike. They will be interviewing 50 to 100 downtown business owners, asking about such things as: expansion plans in the downtown or in another location; plans to move to another location in the downtown or outside the downtown; plans to close the business; and what other specific retail outlets they believe would enhance the downtown.

As for the community survey, Faubert said the hope is to reach as many as 500 people to garner as much knowledge as possible about what people think of the downtown, and what types of retail and service activities would be supported in the commercial core. The BIA aims to understand the downtown customer and gather ideas from the community on how the downtown can better meet people's needs.

The survey is being launched today (Feb. 1), with hard copies available through stakeholders and community groups and organizations; and also on-line through such websites as the Kincardine Times on-line news source, Facebook, E-mail and a press release.

The survey will run now until the end of March when Faubert and Pike will compile the results, do up a report and analysis and present it to council in May.

Faubert also told council that at its January meeting, the BIA did an event evaluation, and has decided to focus on two main events - one in the summer (possibly a Summer Fest) and one in the winter (Hometown Christmas), plus two main promotional campaigns targeting the out-of-town population and addressing the knowledge gap with the at-home population.

"Kudos to the BIA for being so proactive," said councillor Kenneth Craig. He cautioned, however, that there are already a lot of events in the summer and winter. "The BIA and the Municipality of Kincardine should sit down and discuss whether we are over-saturating the area with events. We also need to discuss volunteer burn-out, multiple events and our target audience."

Faubert said the BIA acknowledges all of that but the major obstacle is that everybody feels a sense of ownership of his/her specific event.

"We worked with the chamber of commerce to hold the Christmas event at the same time but that didn't work out," she said. "People have a certain investment in their own events."

She said the BIA wants to focus on one major summer event and would like to work with the municipality, centring on the Monday market.

"It's not a new summer event," explained councillor Guy Anderson. "The BIA wants to update its Calypso Day and help turn a number of small events into one big event.

Check the top left banner of the Kincardine Times for your link to the community survey.

For details about the BIA survey presentation, click here  PLEASE NOTE ... the LINK REQUIRES Power Point or a Power Point viewer.  If you do not have one of these programs, do not click on the link.
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Sunday, January 31, 2010