New businesses rise and others fall as the downtown Okotoks landscape keeps shifting.
No location sees to personify this more than a multi-tenant shopping structure on the corner of Northridge Drive and Elizabeth Street. It’s about to lose its long time fixture business Chung’s Restaurant at the end of the October and it recently saw The Pacific Food Store open then shut its doors over a very short span.
In that same building, hope for success has sprung up in the form of a specialty business known as Bump 2 Baby boutique. The maternity clothing and baby accessory store has been open since May 20.
Its owner is not deterred by other retail closures in Olde Towne Okotoks.
“I’m more of a destination shop,” she said. “Most of my traffic is not just people walking by and coming in.”
The new mother of one explained the heart of her clientele is women who are pregnant and on the hunt for maternity clothes
“It came to me while I was pregnant with my own child,” she said of her inspiration for Bump 2 Baby. “I had my own frustrations in finding what I wanted. In Okotoks there just wasn’t anything like it. There was no direct competition out here. ”
Even with business turnover a regular fixture in Okotoks’ downtown, the Calgary resident did her homework and concluded it was the best place for her shop.
“There are already a few great stores in Calgary and in the Airdrie area too,” Hall said. “There wasn’t maternity out here and every time I come out here I see an abundance of pregnant women.”
Hall is far from alone in her confidence Okotoks is still a great place to be an entrepreneur.
“In some cases we’ve had a business close and the next day the new business is starting to move in,” Okotoks economic development leader Shane Olson said. “One that comes to mind is Celadonna (kitchen essentials). It closed and Home Ground coffee is reopening in that location.”
While Olson explained there have been a 109 new home based business in town this year and almost 40 new storefront operations, business turnovers remain a concern.
“There are more (business) properties that I would have anticipated on the market now,” he said.
While Olson said it’s rarely one reason but a multitude of factors which cause a local business to fail he sees inadequate hours of operation as a detrimental factor particularly for many downtown businesses.
“With a commuting community of 4000 to 5000 commuters every morning most people aren’t home until six, by then the businesses are shut down,” he said.
Elizabeth Street business Gourmet on the Go recently adopted shorter hours but owner and Chef Michelle Albert said it was done out of necessity.
“Pretty much every day it’s dead in the afternoon,” Albert said of customer traffic in her restaurant and take-out food business. “I used to be open to 5:30 p.m. but I have changed it to 4 p.m. It wasn’t worthwhile keeping someone up front.”
Alberta (ALBERT OR ALBERTA) said she and the other businesses she’s talked to had a very slow summer season and some continue to struggle. She explained initiatives like the outdoor shopping Market Square events on the First Saturdays of the month only seem to draw people to the Olde Towne Plaza where they are held.
“It would be nice to have a little more focus on downtown,” she said of the need for a more consistent customer drawing attraction. “It is very important. It’s the life of the town. You want to keep it up. I need to grow but I don’t want to look outside of downtown.”
Tales of business hardship aren’t enough to deter Mary-Ann Zauhar-Hiscock from returning operations to the community’s core. The onetime operator of the Home Ground coffee shop on the west end of Elizabeth Street is returning to downtown about one year after stopping her business involvement there. She and her husband are reopening Friday October 21 several blocks east on North Railway street as Home Ground Coffee and Roasting House.
They relinquished their original location because the family was going to be moving to Eastern Canada for personal reasons. The move was later called off.
“We continued in that year to roast our coffee and wholesale our beans,” Zauhar-Hiscock said of the time away from a store front. “But we realized we really missed the contact with the customers and because we are staying here we decided to reopen.”
Like Bump 2 Baby Boutique owner Hall, the coffee shop owner believes there is a demand for her business which will to make it successful. WHY? IS THIS BECAUSE OF THE VEGAN MENU SHE’S ADDING? CAN YOU EXPLAIN THE CONSCIOUS EATING FOCUS IN THE QUOTE BELOW?
“Given the conscious eating focus of our café and our (on-site) roastery we have a niche that hasn’t been filled in Okotoks,” Zauhar-Hiscock said.
