Latest on this BIA, its now had its inaugural meeting.
Openfile has the details:
http://toronto.openfile.ca/toronto/text/financial-district-torontos-newest-bia
REPORTED BY
Caitlin Orr
Reported on
November 17, 2011
It’s perhaps a bit ironic that the Financial District would be one Toronto’s last neighbourhoods to get its own business improvement area. It is, after all, known as the economic capital of Canada, with property tax revenues of over $400 million.
But this past September, city council approved a positive poll to designate the area as a BIA, and the group held its inaugural annual general meeting on November 9—making it the 72nd BIA in the city.
“It all just seemed to fall together,†says Ian Stewart of GWL Realty Advisors, a member of the steering committee that organized the poll who is now sitting on the board of management.
The process to form the BIA was initiated about a year and a half ago, Stewart says. Other BIAs, such as Downtown
Yonge, had proposed at a meeting last February to expand into the area roughly bordered by Richmond Street to the north, Yonge Street to the east, the CN Rail yard to the south and Simcoe Street to the west. But the major players felt their goals and objectives were different, and voted that it was time to strike out on their own.
Stewart says the BIA is likely to focus on longer-term infrastructure issues, such as reducing gridlock and coordinating city services to avoid blocking traffic flow, as opposed to increasing shopping and retail like most other BIAs.
“When the buildings were built, nobody anticipated the volume of traffic that would come now,†he says.
The 10-member board of management elected includes representatives from Brooks Brothers, Oxford Properties Group, Miller Thomson LLP, Bentall Kennedy, Scotiabank, Brookfield Office Properties, Cadillac Fairview and GWL Realty Advisors.
They will serve until 2014, the same term as the two city councillors whose wards overlap the BIA, Adam Vaughan (Ward 20, Trinity-Spadina) and Pam McConnell (Ward 28, Toronto Centre-Rosedale).
November 9th’s meeting also passed the organization’s $950,000 operating budget for 2012, making it among the richest of Toronto BIAs along with the Entertainment District, Downtown Yonge, Bloor-Yorkville and Emery Village.
Commercial property owners and tenants in a BIA pay a mandatory levy to meet the budget, and the City matches funding for some projects. Stewart says the BIA has to wait until city council determines its own 2012 budget in January, and approves theirs, before the first levy can be collected.
“In order to get office accommodations, to hire staff and to be able to develop a strategic plan we’ll obviously need money,†he says.
The financial district has the players and the resources to lobby for the interests of all BIAs across the city, says Faiza Ansari, special projects and events consultant for the Toronto Association of Business Improvement Areas.
But for the BIA itself to thrive, it will be just as important to balance the shorter-term interests of retailers with the longer-term priorities of landlords, says Susan Bellan, owner of the Yonge Street home furnishing store Timbuktu.
As a past member of the smaller St. Lawrence Market Neighbourhood BIA, she paid about $500 a year, and says she wants the levy to be an investment that benefits all 2,568 commercial tenants in the area, of which a minority are retailers.
“I don’t want to just pay my money to make your building worth more, but I don’t get anything,†she says. “I want to see some action now.â€
Although Bellan says she doesn’t think there is a conflict between the needs of landlords and tenants, landlords tend to invest in improvements that increase property values, but often don’t have an impact before businesses’ leases expire. She says it’s important that some streetscape upgrades attract more customers to businesses in the short term, or the levy becomes like an extra tax.
Bellan says she is concerned about including some of the measures BIAs typically adopt to bring more people into the area, like festivals and flowers.
While the board of management is interested in extending the beautification process the Downtown Yonge BIA has underway, Stewart says they feel advocacy for the members of the downtown core is more important.
“Banners and flower baskets won’t be high on our list of objectives,†Stewart says. Nevertheless, Bellan says the new BIA could be successful, and wants to be involved.
For example, parking is not allowed on King Street West between Yonge Street and University Avenue during the week, but “this area is kind of a wasteland on weekends,†Bellan says. With the increase in people living downtown, adjusting parking regulations could attract more visitors to a livelier financial district.
“That’s where a BIA could really chge things, so there’s a lot of potential,†Bellan says. “It’s exciting.â€
