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Businesses seeing benefits of being downtown

Mar 19, 2018 | 5:06 PM

 

MEDICINE HAT, AB — More and more businesses are slowly making their way downtown.

Several stores have struggled over the years, being unable to make ends meet.

The city is once again offering some incentives for business owners.

The downtown development incentive program is open and applications are available online. The funding is helping entice some to make the move.

“As we were live streaming, I went out there so I saw the crowd in my phone,” said Stephanie Foley, owner of the Mad Hatter Comedy Club. “That was my honest, honest reaction.”

Foley couldn’t believe she was seeing a lineup outside and down the street when the downtown comedy club opened for the first time Saturday night.

The comedian has been in the business for 15 years and her jokes have taken her across the country, but she was ready for a space to call her own.

“I’m getting old,” she said, laughing. “It was time for me to settle down. I got married, I had a baby, and now I can’t be out on tour as much as I’d like. And I still need to fulfill my addiction to my passion.”

Foley knew downtown was exactly where she wanted to be.

“Downtown is filled with mom and pop shops. It’s local. It’s us,” she said. “It’s our city, it’s our community and we’re the ones running the show down here.”

“We’d like to see downtown rejuvenated and brought back to life, as to the old way it was,” said Dale Sorensen.

He and his family opened the doors to their bath bomb business, Sizzlin Bombs, last week.

“We were doing it out of our house there and we just kind of started getting a popular following on Facebook,” he said.

Customers began suggesting the family open a storefront, and while Sorensen said they were hesitant, they saw the benefits that come with having a downtown address.

Robin Anton, operations manager with the City Centre Development Agency, has noticed more people are starting to come back to the city’s core.

“Downtown is starting to gain a little bit of popularity again,” he said. “People are starting to move away from big box stores, the mall, and downtown is a little bit more attractive as far as rent goes.”

“There’s a lot of younger businesses forming downtown,” Sorensen added. “There’s a lot of coffee shops down here so now in order to compliment the coffee shops, you need to get some other businesses in there as well.”

Foley thinks these independent businesses could be just the ticket downtown needs.

“I can just see Third Street Southeast just becoming the now,” she said. “Like, it’s going to become the new nightlife in Medicine Hat.”