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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2023-04-27 DAAC Minutes Downtown Action & Advisory Committee Minutes Thursday, April 27, 20234:00 p.m. Location: In Person, City Hall (Schmalz room) In Attendance Brandon Van Dam, Will Turman, Izabela Wyllie, Darren Becks, Linda Jutzi, Debbie Chapman, Aislinn Clancy, Thea Mistry Meeting Called to Order: 4:05pm Disclosure of Pecuniary Interests: Nothing to declare Agenda Items 1. Welcome, Land Acknowledgment, meeting plan (5 minutes) a. March minutes accepted (B. Van Dam motioned, A. Clancy seconded) 2. DTK Retail in 2023 Aura Hertzog, Economic Development, City of Kitchener (40 minutes) Aura introduced herself. Started her first business Downtown Kitchener 17 years ago. Aura currently owns Aura-La Pastries + Provisions in the Central Frederick neighbourhood. Aura joined the city in February of last year as My Main Street Ambassador for King East and the Market District. After tying up the My Main Street program, her role evolved into an extended contract to focus on developing a new retail strategy for DTK. A highlight was finding strong tenant prospects for the 2 empty city-owned storefronts at Benton and Charles. Identified trends and challenges: - There are currently 12 new businesses opening Downtown. 3 are sit down restaurant concepts. Its nice to see -service food servicing the delivery apps. - Influx of Indian population in the region seeing more Indian restaurants opening in the core - Downtown has vacancies but not many are viable, which is driving up the cost per square foot for more desirable spaces. A less viable space might be in a state of disrepair and requiring significant investment. There is sometimes old equipment sitting in spaces because it is expensive to remove. Or a vacant space might be brand new but is an empty shell, requiring a full build out. There is a scarcity of available spaces with to-code commercial kitchens. - High end of rent is $35/sq. ft. Comparable to uptown. Limited spots in Uptown are driving up the rents in DTK. - Commercial leases often specify that the renter is responsible for leasehold improvements, though a landlord may choose to offer something or do a deal. - When asked if there are any rules around fixing up storefronts, it was explained that by-law might be called Linda: Requested that Auras report be shared with the BIA (Darren can share), and offered some further insights/examples: - Example: Rhapsody sank $350K into their space and walked away with nothing. - - People loved when 220 was a pop-up space - Could the Gaukel Block be sometimes used as a test market? - responsibility for insurance and agreements. It takes a special kind of landlord (like Jay Shaw Darren: - The 220 space will need repairs and investments since being used as a construction office - after months of research and talking to other municipalities. Now we need to figure out how to action it. Aura: - Tenough interest from retailers to move into bricks and mortar with increased costs and decreased foot traffic. This is a trend in other cities. The towns that are doing well are beautiful destination type places. - What I love about Kitchener is that it is d should focus on. We do have a lot of great stuff happening. And people are moving in, people are out on the streets. Brandon: How effective are these stricter bylaws about storefronts that other cities have? Aura: There are some easy things you can do. One example is you could put nice paper up on the empty store windows (example, Cocoon Apothecary which is moving into the old Ten Spot location.) Linda: in 2017, By-law, the Economic Development Director and the BIA did a walk about identifying Darren: Operations and By-law did this again in 2022 and distributed letters. A couple of people complied, and others did not. Property standards orders without teeth become political and then fizzle out. Aura: walking by RBC, their sticker is ripping up the window but how can you complain when they look at the storefront across the street? Linda: it has to be city-d Councillor Chapman: Questioned if it is a good time to do that to the public? Linda: A city doesnnt to air its dirty laundry. We are trying to draw people to come downtown and support our businesses. Will: what are you working on now? How can DAAC support it? - Tell us about the inventory: o Focused on storefronts, what they were, who the businesses are (to understand what we have and what is missing). The gaps we happening everywhere (i.e. people are buying clothing, electronics, books online). Looked at vacancies, took photo, recorded address and who the landlord is. City Centre for an example is empty but has a plan empty, but there is no plan that we know about. Darren: once the Downtown Team is through with some urgent priorities (patios, Gaukel Block) we are going to dig into the retail plan and figure out how to action. Would like to bring that plan back to DAAC. - Façade Program: last year we cleaned up a bunch of outstanding façade grants. This year we are going to do a big push, targeting certain buildings, and inviting building owners to meet with us at their buildings where we can explain what we could do wit conversations with key landlords. The Façade Grant Program is a matching grant of up to $10k, one landlord owns multiple buildings. - You can take ink. 3. DAAC Business (20 minutes) a. New standing agenda item: - B - Pearl Place apartment are move-in ready - City Centre apartments have some occupancy - New Thai restaurant opening in May (SOI Thaifoon) - Score Pizza is opening in July - Gaukel Block coming end of May! - Neuron e-scooters and bikes are here - In the Attic Yoga, new consignment clothing store (Clothing Exchange) - trouble with the building) - Taste of Seoul is moving into the DTK tower - Cocoon Apothecary might open in May - , where the volleyball court used to be Don Julios - New live music program coming thanks to the BIA! Some on patios, but more in public spaces (15 sunset sessions in Vogelsang instead of 4) - DTK Latin Heat! TenC Dance taking over the square on Wednesday evenings - The Coop opening on Queen St. (timing TBD) - What about the Working Centre Commons? The challenge is the kitchen was across the street, so they had to move it because of renovating that building. The program is volunteer based, and all their efforts have been on community outreach. They plan to open Fresh Ground and cook there, the bike shop will be next door, Second Look is moving where the greenroom was. b. Discussion about extending regular meeting length from 1.5 hours to 2 hours - Used to be a 2-hr length. Shorted due to lack of content. But now we have much more to talk about - Is there a chance to start earlier? other jobs - TThis is just a temperature check. - I like keeping meetings lean and efficient. Could we be flexible? - Could leave it at 1.5h and do 2hr meetings when the agenda requests require it. - Could schedule chattier items (like whats new in DTK) to the end of the meeting in case people need to leave early - Perhaps we could pose it to the group and decide as needed month to month. c. Work plan William gave a quick overview of the draft work plan: - For DTK draft vision and principles, a pre-read would be helpful. - Pre-reads in general could help the group be efficient in meeting times. - - Motion to accept the workplan, unanimously accepted - Didnhear the update from sub-committee on proposed changes to the Terms of Reference policy. This has been moved to the May agenda 4. District Energy Tim Donegani and John Zunic, Planning Department, City of Kitchener (35 minutes) a. District Energy presentation and project update b. Questions and discussion - Will business owners be paying more? o Not more, not less (5% rate of return) - Cannot compel connection - Question about the feasibility of waste incineration. o In Europe, definitely o As part of this first phase, they decided not to test different options. If successful, this will open the door for other types of district energy. - If strategic, a placemaking opportunity WR has its own renewable energy - Developers are interested in learning more, but cannot commit without seeing the business case. - The risk is to the utility company, not the developer (compared to a closed loop or bespoke system) - What makes this a candidate when in the past the Region has said no to similar proposals? o It has to do with geology o Explained further about open loop technology c. Seeking DAAC support for taking this to Council in June William: motion to support district energy system - William and Councillor Chapman indicated preference for it to be publicly owned - Linda clarified support for future discussion and exploration doesnt know enough about this subject to commit to anything - Concern expressed about the word partnership o Some partnerships are public. This isnt something that can be accomplished alone. - DAAC is putting support behind the concept. Adjournment5:42pm on motion by B. Van Dam Next Meeting: May 25, 2023, at 4 p.m.