The downtown is the center of a community. Phil DeVos, Executive Director of the Yorkton Business Improvement District, says that the downtown is where a community begins and where it lives, and that’s why it’s important to have a strong downtown core.
“A vibrant downtown is the heartbeat of what people see as a community. That is why we like to look at our downtown, encourage development and new things.”
YBID has been dedicated to creating an environment where people want to establish their business, where people want to go shopping and possibly even make their homes. To that end they have worked with different partners, including the City of Yorkton, the Yorkton Film Festival and Yorkton Exhibition, in order to accomplish projects and attract events downtown. DeVos notes that they have been a big part of beautifying the downtown, whether that means installing flower pots to brighten up the summer, installing benches to give people a place to rest and trash cans to keep garbage off the streets, as well as beginning a pilot project beginning this summer to make it possible to bike downtown. Their goal is to make a place where people want to gather.
“It’s a necessity to have gathering points. Not just one, when I look at the downtown area, we have at least three different areas where people will gather, and that’s not even counting the far west end of our district with the Gallagher Centre. There’s places that you want people to gather, where they can hold specific events, where they can create a kind of synergy where their event is starting other activities to take place... It’s about making things happen.”
YBID encompasses all sizes of business, from large employers to small businesses which employ one or two people, and DeVos says that they’re all important for the downtown. There are about 400 businesses in the district, and DeVos says that they’re there to support them.
He also says that those small businesses are what keep a community growing. Most people who start their first business will begin with a small location, and as they grow they move to bigger locations or expand their current one, keeping the development of the downtown active and improving the state of the locations where they operate.
“We want our businesses to grow, we want to see a business that has two people working at it increase to three or four or more, because that just generates more dollars that go into our own economy, which makes Yorkton a really great place to do business.”
DeVos says that YBID always welcomes comments about what they’re doing in the community and the events they’re part of. People who want to get in touch can email [email protected].
