Okotoks town council has endorsed the Economic Development Implementation Plan presented earlier this month.
Presented by Angela Groeneveld, economic development manager, at the March 11 council meeting, the plan has been in the works for the economic development team for the past three months.
“[Economic development] is different for every community,” said Groeneveld at the meeting. “For the direction [the council] has set for us, it’s about maintaining and growing our local business community first and being investment ready.”
Groeneveld said that she has had to make clear that economic development is not to help grow individual businesses, and hoped that bringing the implementation plan forward would help clarify the role of economic development for the community.
“The bottom line is that we are here for the business community,” she said. “These are struggling times right now… there’s a lot of support [for the plan] because these are tough times that are happening right now in the economy.”
Groeneveld spoke of the bold vision and ambitious set of actions that the team is pursuing for a prosperous business community, referring to the 1,900 business licenses in Okotoks and the desire from those businesses for an economic development plan that works for them.
A key component of the plan was the initiative to work together to help Okotoks succeed, from the economic development team, the Town, the Chamber of Commerce, to the business owners themselves.
“The economic development department will be a one-stop shop,” she said. “If you are an investment looking to come to Okotoks, or if you are a business owner looking to find direction, we will be the one-stop shop. It starts with us.
“We’re not here to solve your problems, we’re here to support you with resources and connect you to further resources.”
Stressing the importance of focusing on local small businesses within the objective of business growth, Groeneveld linked being able to bring in new investments and the success of local business.
“We need to be retaining [small business],” she said. “No matter who I bring into town for investment, if our business aren’t happy in the background they’re not going to stay.”
The plan aims to capitalize on the downtown core as a tourist hub, looking to draw on the 1.2 million people 30 minutes outside of town with a tagline of “join the innovation” as the basis for the atmosphere.
Ed Povhe, president of Olde Towne Okotoks and owner of Bistro 1882, attended the council meeting to hear the plan firsthand, and said in a later interview that he was impressed.
“I was very happy with it, especially because of how they addressed downtown in the study, how they stressed the importance of downtown and how in the studies they have done that’s one of the reasons people want to move here, because we have a great downtown,” said Povhe. “And of course we want to continue with that.
“Throughout the years there have been several initiatives to make downtown better and now it’s time to start putting those plans into action.”
For Povhe, a thriving downtown is important to the success of a community, adding he thinks it’s important that the implementation plan focuses efforts on promoting what the downtown core has to offer people.
“What we’re trying to do since I’ve been here is get marketing dollars in, because it’s impossible for me to market to Calgary in my little place,” he said. “So we’ve been trying to market Olde Towne just to get people downtown, and then the events get people downtown. I don’t have the thousands of dollars to get that same kind of exposure on my own.
“It’s been frustrating because I think more should be done for Olde Towne, more people should appreciate it. If you have a business on Cimarron or Southbridge Drive, the promotion of Olde Towne by the town itself is good for your business too. And that was expressly stated there, which was the first time I’d heard that stated that way by somebody from the town, and that was very refreshing.”
Recognizing the economic times was another benefit for Povhe, who was impressed to see Groeneveld and the economic development team “meet that head on.”
All in all, Povhe said the implementation plan was met with support from Olde Towne Okotoks at their meeting following the council meeting.
“I’ll be keeping track of [the implementation plan], and Angela [Groeneveld] is new so there’s no reason I shouldn’t be confident, but we’ll be closely watching and participating,” he said.
