[biguc]

Downtown megaprojects have probably driven more small businesses under than they've helped along. Portage has seen its small businesses most famously decimated, starting with Portage Place, but Main street has probably suffered the worst, with a string of publicly funded disasters from the civic centre, to the Pan Am Games demolitions, to the more recent WRHA building cutting an organic, small business driven revitalization off at the knees. The reason the exchange is probably doing so well at the moment probably has more to do with CentreVenture leaving the area alone for the last ten years than anything.