By Justin Dionne

Downtown Association in talks with city after funding put on hold

Feb 21, 2019 | 11:36 AM

Grande Prairie’s Downtown Association is worried about phase four of the Downtown Revitalization and Streetscapes project being put on hold.

Council made the decision during 2019 budget deliberations. The Association reached out to the City to try to find solutions.

Executive Director Wendy Bosch says the organization is looking into how to continue the project, and that discussions with the city about funding will continue.

“We need capital funding to back it, and we are going to do research on our own too,” says Bosch. “We are very cognizant of taxpayer money. We don’t want to cause taxpayers to pay in excess, and we don’t want them to pay for things that end up being thrown away – but we also have to keep in mind that we have a revitalization project we’re doing in the core that needs to continue.”

Bosch explains the project has received positive feedback since it began in 2016, and people have also expressed concern to the association after finding out the funding has been put on hold.

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“We’ve had a tonne of compliments in regard to how the revitalization has uplifted our city core, and we’ve had some disappointment from members who are on phase 4 and outside of phase 4 who feel they didn’t finish what we started. Some where under the impression it may not go for 2019 due to construction fatigue, but it would be revisited shortly after that. We don’t know as an association if it’s going to be revisited anytime soon,” says Bosch.

Bosch says one of the things the association is looking into is investigating whether there are other options for phase four of the project, such as working on cosmetic changes rather than a complete overhaul of the area which would include replacing piping, along with everything else that came with phases 1, 2, and 3.

A report on possible cosmetic upgrades to the phase 4 area is expected to be brought up at the next Infrastructure and Protective Services Committee meeting.