The Main Street team standing outside the historic Bailey Theatre.
The Alberta Main Street Program members met in Camrose on March 5th for the first quarterly meeting of 2015. After getting an update on the activities of each of the five Main Street communities (Camrose, Lethbridge, Old Strathcona – Edmonton, Olds and Wainwright), we were led on a walking tour of downtown Camrose by the architect and Main Street Camrose member, David Roth. The walking tour concluded with a reconnaissance of the lovingly restored historic Bailey Theatre.
After lunch we were able to connect via Skype with Charles Ketchabaw of the Tale of a Town initiative. Charles and his team are working their way across Canada collecting stories about main streets in advance of the nation’s 150th anniversary celebrations in 2017. The Tale of a Town ‘story-mobile’ will be visiting Alberta in 2016 and Charles is looking for communities interested in contributing to the initiative. Watch this video to learn more.
A few of the Coordinators are off to experience Main Street, America-style at the 2015 National Main Streets conference being held in Atlanta, Georgia. We look forward to hearing all about it at the next group meeting to be held in Wainwright in May.
And speaking of Main Street, we’d like to remind you that you still have until the end of March to enter Heritage Canada the National Trust’s I Love My Main Street contest.
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Written by: Rebecca Goodenough, Municipal Heritage Services Officer
We all know that next Monday February 16th is Family Day in Alberta and a time for us to get together and appreciate our loved ones; but did you know that Heritage Canada The National Trust has another reason for you to celebrate next Monday? February 16th is also Heritage Day. The theme for this year’s Heritage Day is Main Street at the Heart of the Community and is a chance to appreciate our historic districts and the vibrancy they bring to our lives. Heritage Canada the National Trust has also launched their I Love My Main Street contest. Check out the link to learn how you can participate.
We believe Alberta’s main streets have many stories to tell and that their continued success contributes to healthy, diverse and aesthetically pleasing communities. As many of you are aware, the Alberta Main Street Program is designed to assist historic commercial areas across Alberta. The program is founded on the understanding that properly conserved heritage areas are destinations in themselves. When conservation is coupled with efforts to attract business, host events and otherwise create an animated public space, historic downtowns can have continued life. The Alberta Main Street Program currently has five members – Camrose, Lethbridge, Old Strathcona (Edmonton), Olds and Wainwright – who are working to ensure their main streets remain the heart of their community. The next time you travel to these communities take the time to stop and stroll the main street – you won’t regret it!
This Family Day take a moment to appreciate your local history and perhaps consider taking your family to a historic district to enjoy the sights and sounds. While you are at it, don’t forget to stop and consider the people, the businesses, the streetscape and the beautiful historic buildings which, collectively make it such a special place to be.
Written by: Rebecca Goodenough, Municipal Heritage Services Officer
A new year means a new round of funding opportunities through the Alberta Historical Resources Foundation (AHRF). Grants are available under the the Municipal Heritage Partnership Program (MHPP) for municipally-led heritage survey, inventory and management plan projects and are reviewed and issued four times per year. The Heritage Preservation Partnership Program (HPPP) includes grants for conservation heritage awareness, publication and research projects; as well as two heritage scholarship categories with applications reviewed twice per year. The chart below outlines the 2015 deadlines for the two programs:
Please refer to the links above to access the grant guidelines for each funding program. Questions regarding MHPP can be directed to Michael Thome, Acting Manager of Municipal Heritage Services at michael.thome@gov.ab.ca or 780-438-8508 and questions regarding HPPP can be directed to Carina Naranjilla, AHRF Grant Program Coordinator at carina.naranjilla@gov.ab.ca or 780-431-2305.
Written by: Rebecca Goodenough, Municipal Heritage Services Officer.
It was a blustery day for a Main Street Coordinator’s meeting but thanks to the magic of Skype we were able to be together in the same room – either physically or digitally – last Thursday in Old Strathcona.
Main Street Meeting attendees (from left to right): Shelly Hall Zenew, Henry Maisonneuve, Karen Tabor, Murray Davison, Rebecca Goodenough, Michael Thome, Donna Poon, Matthew Francis
Our friends in Lethbridge, Olds, Wainwright and Camrose joined in online while the Main Street Coordinator’s updated each other on what they have been up to since our last meeting. Everyone seems to be gearing up for a promotion or event to usher in the holiday season.
Our guest speaker for the day was Donna Poon with Visitor Friendly Alberta. The Visitor Friendly program assists communities with increasing their tourist attraction by providing an assessment of the tourist experience and recommendations for how a community may become more “visitor friendly”. The program evaluation is built around five key areas: ambiance and visual appeal; wayfinding and signage; quality of service and professionalism; public services and amenities and; visitor information.
Two of the Alberta Main Street communities, the Town of Olds and the City of Camrose, have completed the Visitor Friendly program and are currently working towards implementing the recommendations of the program. Priority projects include improving wayfinding, data collection and promotion/marketing of the Main Street story.
Donna suggested tackling a few ‘quick win’ projects to build momentum in the local community. The outcomes of the successful implementation of the program often include an increase in resident pride, a positive reputation of the community more broadly and, perhaps most importantly, repeat visitation by tourists to the community.
Visitor Friendly Alberta can be undertaken as either a self-directed project or as a facilitated project led by a qualified consultant. For more information on the program or to learn how to apply, please contact the program at visitorfriendly@gov.ab.ca.
Written by: Rebecca Goodenough, Municipal Heritage Services Officer
Leaders in the Alberta Main Street Program met in Lethbridge this week for their quarterly network meeting and some strategic training. The Main Street Program is a dynamic network of communities engaged in community regeneration through heritage conservation.
Alberta Main Street Program Leaders during their Lethbridge meeting, August 276, 2104
As frequent RETROactive readers will remember, the network met earlier this year in Olds, and then also in May at the U.S. National Trust Main Street Conference in Detroit, Michigan. This meeting was the first for Old Strathcona since joining the program in May, and also the first for Camrose’s new Main Street Coordinator, Janet Hatch.
Each community presented a brief update on the work of their program, including organizational work in Camrose and Old Strathcona, and streetscape initiatives and adaptive re-use projects in Olds and Wainwright.
A walking tour was co-led by Ted Stilson, Executive Director of the Downtown Lethbridge BRZ and Main Street Coordinator, and Belinda Crowson, President of the Historical Society of Alberta. As we strolled through the historic downtown area, on a warm Farmer’s Market morning, Main Street leaders were able to see first-hand some of the significant heritage conservation work that has taken place in Lethbridge under the auspices of the Main Street Program.
Main Street leaders take notes on how Lethbridge’s historic downtown has thrived.
The group especially appreciated getting a tour of the work in progress on the Bow On Tong Building, which has also been featured on RETROactive.
After the walking tour and lunch at Mocha Cabana, one of the City of Lethbridge’s Municipal Historic Resources, historically known as Bell’s Welding, the group participated in a lively training workshop led by Jim Mountain, Director of Regeneration Projects for Heritage Canada the National Trust.
Jim Mountain, Director of Regeneration Projects for the Heritage Canada Foundation.
Jim facilitated a very informative, interactive session on “The Role of the Main Street Coordinator.” His insights, gleaned from years of experience as a practitioner in heritage-led regeneration – both in Fort Macleod and across Canada – were beneficial for both our seasoned veteran Coordinators and also our newer leaders.
Alberta’s Main Street leaders are already looking forward to the next network meeting and training session, to be held in Old Strathcona at the end of November.
Matthew Francis, Manager of Municipal Heritage Services, describes his role this way: “I manage all of the Government of Alberta’s work with municipalities to protect their historic places.” One focus of his job is running the Alberta Main Street Program. The other is leading the Municipal Heritage Partnership Program (MHPP). Both are done with the help of two Municipal Heritage Services Officers.
Matthew Francis, Manager, Municipal Heritage Services.
The Municipal Heritage Partnership Program was established in 2006 to give municipalities across Alberta the training and tools to start up and run their own heritage conservation programs in a way that “represents the best practice of what the Historical Resources Act requires.”
Matthew, who joined the branch the year before, has worked with this program from its start. He explains: “Municipalities in Alberta had been empowered since 1978 to designate their own historic places, but most of them didn’t know about that. Only a handful of communities—Calgary, Edmonton, Banff, Red Deer—had ever designated something at the local level. [The others thought,] ‘This is something we have to go to the Province [to do]’.”
“So the first several years were really about building awareness. I spent almost 100 days on the road in 2006 going all over Alberta—small towns and cities, and everywhere. We were able to tell them, this can be done locally around the council table, and through a bylaw, and we gave them the background on that, and the training, the tools.”
MHPP staff members lead workshops for local government staff, volunteers, and sometimes elected officials as well, to train them in how to protect locally significant historic places by using recognized tools. The main identification tools are surveys: research projects that gather basic historical and architectural information on possible historic resources. Conducting a survey can be a first step toward developing a comprehensive heritage conservation program. MHPP also offers workshops on heritage inventories: projects that helps a community identify places of outstanding local significance and develop a deep understanding of each place that will help the municipality determine how to protect and conserve it.
The Alberta Historical Resources Foundation offers matching grants to municipalities in Alberta that are undertaking surveys or heritage inventories or that are developing heritage management plans. MHPP staff often help municipalities craft viable survey or inventory projects that are likely to be funded by the Foundation. The MHPP also helps to evaluate grant applications, making funding recommendations to the Foundation’s Board of Directors.
Sometimes staff must overcome scepticism or even hostility of those who think heritage conservation is anti-progress. Matthew responds: “A lot of people when they think about their historic buildings, they think about the past, and we’re more concerned about saying, does that place have a future? That’s the conversation that we’re trying to have.”
Ideally, each municipality will first establish what the MHPP calls a Heritage Advisory Board (HAB), although it may have a different name locally. If the local government decides to seriously pursue the conservation of its historic resources, MHPP staff will meet with the board and others to explain that process and make sure they understand the three key aspects of evaluation: eligibility, significance, and integrity. Heritage consultants—historians, planners, or others with a conservation-related background—typically do the survey or inventory work under the direction of the advisory board.
As a central part of this work, the consultant will produce a document called a Statement of Significance for each historic place, which describes why the community values the place and what about it needs protection to preserve its significance. The HAB must be able to assess the quality of each Statement of Significance, making sure that each document accurately describes the significance and integrity of the historic resource(s) discussed. The HAB will make a recommendation on designation to the municipal council.
“Our place is not to intervene in [designation decisions],” Matthew says. “Municipalities in Alberta can designate whatever they want. They’re empowered to do that. It’s the community that has the local knowledge, and that’s what we’re trying to draw out.” But, ideally, the local government will learn how to make good decisions about heritage designation—decisions that are consistent across the community and also consistent with the best practices that are in use throughout Alberta. Municipalities may also establish their own regulations for the protection of their designated historic places.
“I really love working with the Heritage Advisory Boards.” Matthew reflects. “They’re volunteers for the most part, and they’re there for a reason—it’s usually because they have some sort of personal connection to these historic places that are meaningful to them in their community. A really enjoyable part of the work is getting to hear some of those stories.”
Today, MHPP staff members usually work with a municipality by invitation, although sometimes they’ll contact a local government proactively. This may be initiated by inquiries from private citizens concerned about protecting a specific historic place. When that happens, the MHPP staff member will urge them to contact their local government, but then will follow up with government staff to discuss the option of historic resource designation to protect the resource. “And from there we’ll say, ‘Have you thought more comprehensively about taking a look at all your historic places?’”
The annual Municipal Heritage Forum, a project of Municipal Heritage Services, supports these efforts. “Before 2007 people doing heritage conservation locally in different communities had very little connection with each other,” Matthew recalls. The first forum in 2007, called a Summit for Stakeholders, had about 40 participants. “It was basically just bringing the people together and giving them some information,” Matthew says. “But [we saw that] it’s the sharing of information [that’s important]. It’s really great to see the local knowledge increase and for that information to be shared peer-to-peer.” The forum now attracts about 125 attendees each year, and has become an eagerly anticipated event for heritage professionals and advocates across Alberta.
The Municipal Heritage Partnership Program has now worked with more than 100 municipalities, and it continues to help “repeat customers” as well as communities that are new to heritage conservation. The MHPP keeps evolving, along with the communities it serves. “We’ve worked with communities now that have been through the awareness cycle, so they know how to do [heritage designation], and they’re taking a high degree of ownership for this, which is what we always intended,” Matthew explains. The next step, he says, is helping them integrate heritage conservation into other urban planning initiatives—“not [treating it] like an appendage or an afterthought. Two of the flood-impacted communities we work with—High River and Medicine Hat—are working on major initiatives with their downtown planning, and I think they are leading the way on some of this.”
Municipalities have evaluated well over 1,000 historic places across Alberta since the program’s beginnings, “and that’s the number we keep an eye on,” Matthew says. “Not all of those places have been or will be designated or be protected,” he adds, “but at least they’re known. We know about them, and the communities know about them—and that’s really what matters most.”
The National Main Streets Conference is a big event. This year over 1,400 people attended the conference and there were approximately 75 sessions to choose from. Needless to say it was difficult to choose which sessions to attend. Of the sessions that I attended two stood out for me as being really helpful for our Main Street members: “The Naked Truth about Well-Dressed Windows” and “Main Street Makeover – Surviving and Thriving during Construction”.
Storefront Windows
Store owners only have a few seconds to convince a passerby to enter their establishment. The quality and interest of store window displays goes a long way in enticing potential shoppers. “The Naked Truth about Well-Dressed Windows” provided by Seanette Corkill of Frontdoor Back, a retail consultant based out of Vancouver, Washington, included a lot of practical advice on how to plan for and manage your window displays.
Seanette covered planning and investment for window dressings and stressed the importance of budgeting for lighting and props to build a collection that can be used over time. The decision on what type of backdrop to use is important and you can choose from full disclosure (store is visible behind the display), partial disclosure (where the store is partially visible but separated from the display) and closed (display blocked from the rest of the store). Decals are a good addition to storefront but they should be modest in size, not interrupt sightlines and placed to direct the eye to the display itself. Lighting is immensely important and should consist of tracked lighting that will light the top and front of the product on display.
Switching topics from the pretty to the dirty, Kristi Trevarrow’s session on “Surviving and Thriving during Construction” drew on her role with the Rochester Downtown Development Authority in coordinating a main street upgrade project in Rochester, Michigan. The project involved a complete overhaul of the roads, underground services and streetscape and affected their downtown main street for several months. Her responsibility was to minimize the impact of the construction project on local businesses.
According to Kristi, the key to managing business during a successful construction project is pre-planning and communication. In her case, Kristi started holding information meetings two years in advance of the construction and met with everyone she could think of including business owners, residents, local organizations, major employers, property owners and adjacent municipalities. Communications for the project included a project website with regular updates; a brochure with frequently asked questions for businesses to hand out to their patrons; a comprehensive media engagement strategy; social media updates; a field office on the main street for the project (which they built into the project contract); monthly community meetings throughout the duration of the project; and last but not least, a presence on the street every day during construction to field questions and respond to concerns. There were still hiccups that occurred along the way but the high level of planning and engagement by the Development Authority minimized negative experiences.
Both high quality window displays and infrastructure renewal projects can go a long way to ensuring your main street is looking top notch. These sessions were helpful in teaching the ins and outs of how to schedule and manage aesthetic projects from the small to large.
Written by: Rebecca Goodenough, Municipal Heritage Services Officer
The Bow On Tong Building and the Manie Opera Society Building are two well-known places in downtown Lethbridge that contribute to the distinctive cluster of buildings that make up Lethbridge’s Chinatown district. Recognizing their remarkable history and exceptional significance, the City of Lethbridge’s council recently designated each as a Municipal Historic Resource. The buildings are now undergoing comprehensive rehabilitation, including extensive structural repairs and the careful retention of historic elements found nowhere else in Alberta. I had the opportunity to visit these fascinating places just before Easter, gaining a glimpse into Lethbridge’s Chinese community during the first half of the last century.
Ted Stilson showing me Apothecary’s showroom and work area. (April 17, 2014)
We peek inside the cabinets to find, well, I’m not sure.
Boxes full of remedies, including “kidney pills”.
A 1907 City bylaw restricting all laundries to this area was enforced only if the laundry was Chinese-owned. Other Chinese-owned businesses followed the laundries into the neighbourhood west of Galt Gardens. The Bow On Tong was constructed in 1916 in the middle of the city block known as Chinatown, on 2nd Avenue South. Beside it stood the Manie Opera House Building (not its original name), built about a decade previously. Lethbridge’s Chinatown had begun.
The basement of the Bow On Tong Building in the middle of rehabilitation (April 17, 2014)
My tour of the buildings started on the main floor of the Bow On Tong and was led by Ted Stilson, coordinator of Lethbridge’s Main Street Program, and Kevin Peterson, general contractor for the rehabilitation project. I learned that Way Leong, a Chinese apothecary, opened the Bow On Tong Co. in the 1920s, from where he dispensed traditional remedies to the Chinese community. Shelves and cupboards, labeled with Chinese characters, line the walls of the small shop and tell of Mr. Leong’s practice which operated here into the 1950s. Several of the varnished wood drawers still contain the apothecary’s supplies and equipment. (Unfortunately, while I was there, I did not have the pleasure of meeting Way’s son, Albert Leong, who lived in the building up until rehabilitation work started.)
The basement of the Manie Opera Society is just as interesting. Even with all the construction work going on, I could make out traces of the frail partitions dividing the basement into little rooms. Immigrant coal miners from China once lived down here; their tiny, cramped quarters wallpapered in newspaper still clinging to the walls. A few rooms seem to have been decorated with pictures of American celebrities clipped from magazines—icons of the popular culture of their new homeland.
Kevin Peterson shows us a portion of one of the makeshift walls. Pictures of american celebrities cut out of magazines are everywhere. (April 17, 2014)
Rehabilitation began last year when cracks appeared in the upper wall of the Bow On Tong, leading to the discovery of structural problems throughout both buildings that was slowly causing them to collapse. Major parts of the work are now in progress include the shoring up of a crucial load-bearing wall shared by both buildings and upgrades to meet the current fire code. Even with the urgency of the structural repairs, the work is being done with painstaking care to avoid destroying historic materials. The pressed metal ceiling of the apothecary, for example, has been carefully removed piece by piece. Each piece is numbered and its location mapped before careful cleaning and repainting. After structural reinforcement of the ceiling and the installation of new fire-resistant drywall (required by the building code), the ceiling will be reassembled, with each piece installed in the sequence in which it was removed.
The basement in the Maine Opera Society Building was once wallpapered in newspaper.
Some of the pages are still visible.
The ambitious and painstaking work I saw is a testament to the dedication of the community of Lethbridge, which has supported the project through local fundraising activities and the donated time of many volunteers. Kevin Petersen, the general contractor, has himself contributed much of his own time. When the rehabilitation work is complete, Albert Leong will return to his lifelong home in the Bow On Tong Building. It, and the neighbouring Manie Opera Society Building, will continue the legacy of Lethbridge’s Chinatown.
Written by: Michael Thome, Municipal Heritage Services Officer.
This is the second in a series of posts on our experience attending the National Main Street Conference in Detroit.
I had the pleasure of attending the 2014 National Main Street Conference recently, in Detroit, Michigan. Several Albertans were there with me, including four people representing two of our main street communities: the Town of Olds and the City of Camrose. The (U.S.) Main Street Program has been operating in the United States for over 35 years now. As Alberta continues to revitalizes our its Main Street program, we continue to learn from the American counterpart.
The Canadians after the opening plenary session. Each american state formed a delegation, so we formed one of our own.
In the late 1970s, the (U.S.) National Trust for Historic Preservation was exploring ways to facilitate the preservation of historic downtowns. All over North America, businesses and residents had been leaving downtown and moving to new suburban neighbourhoods and consequently many historic places were neglected and being abandoned. The National Trust realized that solving the problem would not be as simple as restoring dilapidated buildings; restoring historic commercial areas meant bringing people back down town. It launched a three-year Main Street Project in 1977 to study ways to revitalise declining downtowns. The main street pilot project was so successful that it was made a permanent program in 1980 and was soon helping hundreds of communities throughout the United States revitalise their historic commercial areas.
A Main Street project works by pursuing four equally important activities: organizing business owners and residents around a common purpose; economic restructuring or strengthening the existing businesses while also diversifying the mixture of business types; designing a functional and pleasant streetscape that highlights the authentic historic places; and promotion, or rekindling a sense of pride in the downtown. Economic restructuring ensures that businesses are successful and the Main Street is able to pay its own way. Design ensures that Main Street has a functional and pleasant streetscape—built around authentic historic buildings—and creates an inviting place that people want to work, live and play in. Promotion ensures that the community (and visitors from away) know what the area has to offer and feel welcome. Organization ensures that business owners, residents and other stakeholders take shared responsibility for the success of their downtown.
The keynote by Donovan Rypkema presented a straightforward and compelling explanation of how the program works and why it works so well. (Mr. Rypkema is an internationally regarded specialist in the economics of historic preservation.) He argued that Main Street is the most effective, sustainable and “cheapest” economic development strategy he’s come across, for historic areas or otherwise. This is because the four pillars of a Main Street align with the four factors that set the value of real estate.
Mr. Rypkema compared the four pillars of Main Street (design, organization, economic restructuring and promotion) with the four forces of value: economic, physical, social, and political. Mr. Rypkema talked about how Main Street works because each of the four points is aimed at increasing a corresponding area of value. When an area restructures economically by ensuring a mixture of complementary businesses, it increases the number of visitors and therefore the profitability of each business and consequently the value of the real estate.
A Main Street Program adds to the physical value of property when it restores dilapidated historic places and otherwise upgrades the streetscape. It adds to the social value of property by improving how the community feels about the area, by increasing local pride in a historic area. Finally, it adds to the political value of property when the range of possible, profitable and acceptable uses increases. He calls it the most successful economic restructuring programs ever tried in the United States. (On a somewhat related note, Mr. Rypkema joked that Main Street was working on smart growth and new urbanism before these planning philosophies were proposed.)
The best part about the conference was the opportunity to learn from peers in the Main Street movement. There were excellent sessions around all the four points. I attended lots of sessions on using social media effectively (big surprise) and community organization. I highly suggest that anyone interested in these ideas look into the National Main Street Center. I look forward to perhaps attending next year’s in Atlanta, Georgia.
Written by: Michael Thome, Municipal Heritage Services Officer.
You have no doubt heard of the trials and tribulations of the City of Detroit: the near death of the auto industry, massive population loss, infrastructure woes and high crime rates. The negative connotations have led to a public image of a city abandoned and in upheaval whereas the best-case-scenario associations portray it as a playground of urban decay and rock-bottom housing prices. When I learned that the National Main Street Conference was being held in Detroit this year, I was pleased that I would be able to see it for myself, albeit in the cocoon of a programmed conference setting.
Having now been there I can make a few comments. First, it is a stunning city. There are architectural marvels (both in use and abandoned), striking parks and trail networks and an eclectic mix of things to do. Second, the city is hard at work. Travelling in and around the downtown core, there is evidence of a community working to rebuild and repair. Third, the city seems to be acutely aware of the volunteerism and resources required to improve its image. Bike patrols and on-foot clean-up crews strive to ensure the downtown core is safe and clean. Residents are cheerful and exceptionally welcoming.
This said, did I really see Detroit? Visiting as part of a conference I no doubt had a curated experience of the city and limited time for exploration. It is important to remember that there are layers that we do not understand: a history of labour and race disputes, urban renewal programs and community activism. There is a long-standing population who is probably growing weary from being under the microscope. I would encourage everyone to visit and appreciate the people, public spaces and community spirit, along with the many restaurants, sports events, markets, museums, and music that make up Detroit. However, visit with an appreciation of the modern urban realities facing the city. Acknowledge and be aware of the complex layers of economic, social and political issues (past and present) that continue to inform the fabric of the city. Detroit is a fascinating and many-faceted city and I would encourage you to make the trip.
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Stay tuned for upcoming posts about the content of the National Main Streets Conference!
Written by: Rebecca Goodenough, Municipal Heritage Services Officer
RETROactive 