Sault Blog

As a business and commercial building owner in the Sault’s Downtown from 1991-2005, I am familiar with the challenges of operating a Downtown Queen Street storefront business.

The 90s, a difficult financial time for the Sault, translated into some graffiti, vandalism, and break and enters into Downtown businesses. There were a few homeless and alcoholic transients that were basically harmless and just annoying panhandlers. That all changed in the early 2000s when the mentally-health challenged invaded the Downtown. These individuals loitered in front of banks and retail operations, demanding money to fuel their opioid addictions. Far from benign, they were, in fact, frightening in appearance and aggressive in behaviour. This signalled my exit from the Downtown, and my subsequent observations after that witnessed a fentanyl drug-fuelled epidemic that brought chaos to the Downtown. The Downtown area become synonymous with a crime that is out of control: stabbings, assaults, repeated break and enters, smashed windows and doors, drug-addicted individuals lying all over the Downtown sidewalks, and discarded needles everywhere. After all this time, we have the former Chief of Police blaming lax Liberal’s Government laws and our Federal MP blaming the Chief of Police for the ongoing Downtown crime. The necessary law and order was not applied to the Downtown; therefore, the Downtown Association (DTA) never stood a chance at attracting new businesses when people didn’t feel safe to shop, play, or work Downtown.

The DTA and the City of Sault Ste. Marie maintained the two-hour free parking limit policy for all municipal parking lots far too long. This may have worked initially, but as parking needs changed, the policy did not. The lack of dedicated, accessible, convenient parking drove many businesses from the Downtown. Sault shoppers are spoiled; they want convenient, accessible, free parking without worrying about Downtown Green Onion parking attendants. A failure to change the parking policy Downtown; ensured the DTA did not stand a chance to retain businesses.

Similar rust-belt cities like Midland and Bay City, Michigan, compressed the size of their Downtown by shedding the blighted periphery, removing dead-asset buildings, and de-mapping areas no longer needed, thus allowing redevelopment of blighted Downtown areas for better uses. The Sault’s Gore Street needed to be de-mapped; it was no longer required as a retail or commercial zone as those businesses fled from the Downtown decades ago. The City’s population kept shrinking, and the City Planning Department kept adding retail and commercial space to the Uptown big box area. The Gore Street redevelopment would never work; adopting modern de-mapping strategies like Michigan cities would have proved a better use of tax-payer dollars. The DTA never stood a chance at revitalizing Gore Street without a proper blight removal strategy.

Successful Downtown areas like “The Glebe, The Danforth, Petosky, Traverse City” have a commonality: housing around their Downtown are well maintained, desirable, and have high household average incomes that support a vibrant Downtown. Whereas many Sault Downtown homeowners have civic pride in maintaining their homes, far too many homes Downtown are in a terrible blighted condition. Slumlords and now Corporate Slumlords have perpetuated a culture of blight that has driven away the residential property homeowner. A failure to address the housing blight by the City Building Department with an aggressive housing blight removal program/strategy/budget over the past 44 years stifled housing redevelopment. The only problem with the housing in our Downtown core is neglect, and nobody neglected it more than the City Building Department. A failure to deal with decades-long Downtown housing blight drove away the residential homeowners, without which the DTA never stood a chance at making the Downtown a complete vibrant business neighbourhood.

After a 49-year run, the DTA was dismantled by the current Mayor and City Council. As the City Administration is already responsible for operating the new Downtown Plaza, it was only a matter of time before the DTA would be absorbed into our big Civic Centre administrative machine. However, when asked if there was “a plan” to revitalize the Downtown, there didn’t seem to be much of an answer.

Mark Menean, http://www.saultblog.com