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By Chris Brown

Public Services to activate and operate

Innovative and creative ideas, synergies with downtown community sought for Towne Square

Apr 14, 2022 | 4:04 PM

MEDICINE HAT, AB – About nine months after a groundbreaking ceremony was held for the Towne Square development the city is almost ready to make it official and welcome visitors to the downtown space.

“Now that it’s built and ready to go it’s really exciting to have the opportunity to see how the space is going to be utilized and really involve the community in that process so that it meets or satisfies its goal of providing a community space for sure,” says Mayor Linnsie Clark. “But also driving traffic downtown so that we are adding to the vibrancy of downtown and creating a situation where businesses downtown can be more successful and more businesses can be successful downtown.”

With the development work complete Invest Medicine Hat will turn Towne Square over to the city’s Public Services Department for activation and operation.

Brian Mastel, the managing director of public services, is also excited about the opportunities ahead.

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He says they may try to program activities for the space but will be looking more for community-led ideas. He suggests a movie in Riverside Veterans’ Memorial Park across the street and an upcoming street hockey event as prime opportunities. Once downtown, the idea is that people will also visit the shop, restaurants and everything else downtown.

“The idea of bringing multiple things in the core will draw people down to partake in a number of activities and I think that’s how you can build some momentum,” Mastel says.

An amendment will be on the agenda for Monday’s city council meeting, to establish an operating budget of $100,000 for expenses. Mastel says their focus will be to generate revenue that offsets expenses to make it neutral from a tax perspective.

There will be some stable revenue from parking at the site, where there will be 30 stalls sold for monthly parking and 29 for hourly or daily parking. There will also be three accessible parking spaces.

The city will look to innovative and creative ideas for the space and Clark says they are trying to find opportunities and synergies with the downtown community.

“Ultimately we all have the same goals of driving traffic downtown to help businesses there and creating more opportunities for more business,” she says.

Saying it’s going to be a bit of trial and error in the early going, Clark says they’ll also be nimble and willing to pivot with their event plans.

Mastel says there has been initial interest from community groups in using Towne Square and city officials are looking for a mix of for-profit and not-for-profit users for both the general space and the sea can market spaces.

He adds he expects the city’s Community Development office will be fielding calls on Monday about renting the space.

As for a grand opening date or celebration, officials would only say to stay tuned.