Post on : September 11, 2020

Next week, the City of St. John’s will kick off a public engagement process to gather feedback on the Downtown Pedestrian Mall Pilot Project as part of its overall evaluation of the project.

According to the City of St. John’s, the Pedestrian Mall was set up to achieve two goals. First, it was developed in response to, and as a means of providing the business community expanded space from which to sell their goods and services, with the anticipated result of stimulating the downtown economy, and secondly, as a means to adhere to required public health physical distancing guidelines stemming for the Covid 19 pandemic.

As key stakeholders, the Downtown business community will play a vital role in the public engagement process.There are several ways the business community can provide feedback throughout the process:

  1. Downtown Business focus groups – the City of St. John’s are looking for downtown businesses and property owners from all sectors both inside and outside the mall footprint. They are planning 6 focus groups in total – with 8-12 people per group. Each would be 1.5 hours in duration and take place virtually. The purpose of these focus groups is to have a conversation with the various business sectors in the downtown about what worked well, what was challenging, and what could be improved for future malls. If you are interested, please reach out to Downtown St. John’s at info@downtownstjohns.com by Sept. 16 to put your name forward. We need to know your business sector and the location of your business or property. These focus groups will take place throughout Sept. and city staff will be in touch regarding scheduling.
  2. Complete the business survey – the survey will include questions for businesses within the footprint and for those in the downtown but outside the footprint. The survey will be shared via a link on the city’s engagestjohns.ca page, through social media and through Downtown St. John’s, Board of Trade, BOMA, etc.
  3. Email engage@stjohns.ca with specific feedback that you are not able to include in the survey.

The engagement plan also includes opportunities for the public and other stakeholders to provide feedback. If you have questions about the public engagement plan, feel free to reach out to Victoria Etchegary,  Manager, Organizational Performance and Strategy with the City of St. John’s directly at vetchegary@stjohns.ca or visit engagestjohns.ca

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