New Westminster mayoral candidates pitch different ways to revive downtown core

Located just north of the city's riverfront, New Westminster's historic downtown core used to be called "The Miracle Mile" or "Golden Mile" for the unique shopping experience it offered.

But in the last few decades, the area has slowly deteriorated as malls became more desired places to shop, leaving several empty storefronts and many homeless people in the area around Columbia Street.

This has raised concerns among the area's business owners — and become one of the defining issues for the city in the upcoming municipal election.

"What will attract more people is if they have more shops and cafes and businesses to go look at when they're walking down Columbia Street," said Anita Dunn, owner of Mila + Paige women's clothing boutique.

"But here, there's one shop and then there's a derelict building or there is an empty lot that takes up a whole block, which doesn't allow people to want to keep walking further down the street."

Last October, Mayor Jonathan Coté and his administration took steps to address homelessness, drug toxicity and the COVID-19 pandemic by increasing waste bins and access to public washrooms or porta-potties, as well as mental health outreach and support, addiction intervention, and emergency shelter and housing.

With Coté not running for re-election on Oct. 15, three mayoral candidates have stepped in with differing ideas for how to revitalize the downtown core. They each spoke to On The Coast reporter Margaret Gallagher.

Mayoral candidates's suggestions

"We need to be proactive. I think an important part to think about is that 1990s urban renewal ideas don't work anymore," says Patrick Johnstone of Community First, a two-term city councillor.

"The problems we have are not 1990s problems and the businesses we have aren't 1990 businesses, they're 21st-century businesses and we need a fresh approach."

For example, he said, the focus should be on creating a transit-oriented shopping destination, rather than creating more parking.

His suggests implementing parking relaxations and adding more retail spaces to existing buildings.

Independent candidate Chuck Puchmayr believes a safe downtown core will bring people back.

"My goal has always been that the best form of economic development is clean, safe streets. If you provide a clean, safe street, businesses can flourish, [but don't] tweak too much where you're running affordable businesses out," says Puchmayr, who previously served as a city councillor from 1996 to 2005 and 2011 to 2014, and as an MLA between.

New Progressives' Ken Armstrong believes more foot and bike police patrols will help the downtown core, as will having a better connection between the area and the redeveloped riverfront.

"We want to conduct an initiative to try to re-imagine Columbia Street that will attract a more diverse group of retail merchants, which will in turn animate the streetscape — including finding ways to direct traffic from the wonderful [riverfront] boardwalk ... to Columbia Street to increase pedestrian activity," he said.