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Melfort mulls business improvement district

Nov 7, 2017 | 6:40 AM

Business owners and local leaders in Melfort are asking whether a business improvement district (BID) would be beneficial to their community.

In 2014, the city was part of the Main Street Saskatchewan program, aimed to provide chosen centres with access to grants and tutelage from government and private consultants.

The funding for the program was cut by the provincial government in the last budget.

Melfort councillor Tim Hoenmans took over the program after he was elected. 

“We managed to complete two of those projects: Plus Stuff Junction downtown, as well as TJ’s Pizza had some work done. There was another project that for whatever reason the business owner didn’t pursue downtown so that was too bad, but we still did pretty well getting funding for two storefront facades,” he said.

Hoenmans went door to door meeting with local entrepreneurs in the months following the cuts. A business improvement district idea was generated through the discussions. He said if business owners liked the idea, funds could be earmarked for a BID program. 

A meeting was held in Melfort on Oct. 25 with roughly 30 business owners attending. Hoenmans said several possibilities were discussed.

“We talked about potential partnerships with some other community organizations to see if that was an avenue that maybe we could partner up with somebody. [We could] share some administration costs or team up our services with another organization to see if we could unlock some value in a way we hadn’t thought of that maybe an entrepreneurial minded business owner could come up with,” Hoenmans explained.

There are roughly 300 businesses in Melfort, according to Hoenmans. He hoped a larger contingent attends a second meeting on Tuesday, Nov. 14, 6:30 p.m. at the Legion.

Hoenmans said it will be up to the city’s businesses to keep the process moving forward.

“What we don’t want is to have the business community feel like they are being attacked and this is just another tax. We want to make sure we have something of value here that the business owners want,” he said.

 

clarkstork@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @ClarkStork