For me, one of the best parts of Victoria has always been the amazing selection of independent stores. Maybe I missed this aspect in other cities, but it always seemed that for a smaller city, we have an excellent selection of independent, interesting retailers. In addition to having great stores, there are hundreds of local artisans and craftspeople providing wares for many of these small businesses. Building on this mix of independent retailers there is an eclectic mix of restaurants options. Combine both the amazing retail and vibrant dining and you have a very attractive downtown to visit.

I think that we all knew that with the double blow of office workers not commuting into the core and the very limited tourism that happened last summer and will likely be repeated this summer, many of these amazing places have begun to close. In addition, as we headed into the pandemic, Victoria had been at the crest and maybe still is, of a building boom. There have been lots of buildings finished over the last 18 months most with ground floor commercial space. As the buildings were in planning before the pandemic, the thought was that all of this commercial space would be snapped up quickly. It could have been worse and we will have to continue to watch how 2021 goes. Currently, the before and during Covid seems to be an increase from 3 percent retail vacancy to about 6 percent.

With the pressures of less business, an unknown future, and a growing perception of a declining downtown, we need something to invigorate the retail sector, which is where today’s post comes in.

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What if we could with one fun event, create an abundance of excitement about shopping downtown while also taking advantage of some of the vacant retail spaces and as an added bonus, also maybe give some local potential entrepreneurs a chance to be a part of the downtown fabric? Okay, I am aware that this idea is going to seem little out there, but I could see it working and it would really create some buzz about shopping downtown, especially as we come out of the pandemic, create an exciting reason to go shopping.

So the idea in a nut shell is to take a small number of vacant store fronts, perhaps five retail spots downtown and maybe five more in the Chinatown / NotCh area and turn them into pop-up retail and maker locations for local Victoria artisans. There is a twist though in that you would have to win one of the spots through a competition.

I think that if the City worked with the Downtown Victoria Business Association, local developers and building owners, that the ten retail spots could be easily enough attained. There are many vacant spots in some of the new buildings and personally I think that leasing them with a shop set-up in them temporarily would be beneficial as locals would already have it as a retail spot in their head in the future. The keys to the spaces would be little to no tenant improvements to the spaces, insurance for the enterprise backed through the City, and the product and decor by the winning sellers.

Like many of you, the selection of television shows has been diminishing over the pandemic. One of the stalwarts has been the reality competition shows, whether that show is a bake off or glass blowing wars. This retailer competition would be done in a similar way, hopefully with the support of Shaw, Telus, CHEK or C-FAX as hosts of the event. That said it would need to be done quickly and with a short duration, so that the end result could be in place as soon as possible. There would need to be a selection of proponents that had enough product or could make enough product to fill a small retail space, a solid short and long term business plan and something that people want.

It would likely work best if you could differentiate between two different classes, one that is strictly a retail endeavor and ones that had a maker component like leather work or furniture building, as certain businesses would be better suited to the different areas in and around downtown.

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If the competition was able to generate enough buzz, and the retailers opened up just as the vaccines are building us towards a herd immunity, I could see people heading downtown to see the businesses and realise that all of the other great retailers and restaurants were still there.

So a bit of a crazy idea but could it work? Thoughts and improvements welcomed in the comments below!