The worrisome remake of our traditional main streets
Kelly Egan, Ottawa Citizen
Updated: March 2, 2020
Our traditional main streets still have lots of stores, squeezed in between all that coffee.
But there are some things harder and harder to find on Ottawa’s urban mains: bookstores, music shops, hardwares, department stores of any size, big grocery outlets, newsstands, movie theatres, shoe stores, old-style “corner” stores, and now toy stores.
The demise of Mrs. Tiggy Winkle’s is a blow to the entire city and a reminder that the main street of your youth is gone, never to come back. But cheer up, here’s a $2 doughnut.
A fitness centre beside a yoga studio, next to a chiropractor, adjacent to a Bridgehead, beside a bank below a condo, alongside a trendy restaurant that will die in two years, is not a far-off description of what you see along stretches of Wellington, Bank, Rideau or Elgin.
Sure, Tiggy Winkle’s was just an independent toy store — six outlets at its peak. But is its demise telling us something important about the neighbourhoods we’re building and the perilous future of the family-owned independent, yet another canary in retail’s coal mine?
Eira MacDonell is the general manager of Mrs. Tiggy Winkle’s, which is closing the last of its stores — the flagship on Bank Street in the Glebe — this month.
She has been there for 38 of the store’s 43 years. So it’s been a life’s work. She’s not interested in blaming customers for changes in shopping habits but points to factors, some well-known, others not.
For one thing, everyone from Canadian Tire to Costco to Shoppers to Loblaws is selling toys. Platforms like Facebook and Kijiji have made the resale of toys that much easier. There are parent-led online sites where toys are swapped or given away for free. Nothing wrong with that, she says, but it all begins to add up.
Not to mention that today’s child has a list for Santa that is heavy digital or electronic, which is not Tiggy Winkle’s strength. And looming over everything is the spectre of online shopping which, for a small retailer, can be a killer on price, convenience and availability.
(Let’s just call it “ironic” that all of those people sitting in coffee shops possibly ordering merchandise online are helping destroy the little store next door where — imagine the horror — they could just walk in, try it and take it home, delivery included!)
MacDonell was asked about whether the traditional main street suffers from the loss of family-owned independents.
“100 per cent agree. I know we are leaving big holes in both the Bank and Wellington neighbourhoods.” The stores created “an energy” that you would translate to the street, she said.
Indeed, customers were so sad at the news that a “memory wall” has been created in the store to showcase all the kind letters, notes and messages. “Some of the letters from children just melt my heart.”
Along a nearby stretch of Bank, there is another bit of news too timely not to mention. The city’s longest-running independent music retailer, Compact Music, is closing one of its two locations to make way for a pot shop. And doesn’t that say everything about the times we live in?
Some interesting statistics from a report done for the Wellington West BIA, which supports one of the more buzzworthy strips in the city.
Of the roughly 550 businesses, the leading category in 2018 was “professional services” at 30 per cent, followed by “health and beauty” at 18 per cent, restaurants at 15 and stores and boutiques at 13.
Another way of putting that? Increasingly, our traditional main streets are turning into service hubs, not places we buy goods. Maybe that’s nothing to worry about. Or, if you’re trying to buy a pair of shoes, a book or a box of nails, maybe it is.
Dennis Van Staalduinen is executive director of the BIA. He worries about anything that hurts the bottom line — hits to revenue from societal trends like online shopping, or higher costs from rent or taxes.
More people are an important part of the solution, he says. All those new residential towers — along or near LRT — represent hundreds of new customers and more foot traffic.
“You’d be foolish to look at the trends towards urbanization and intensification and think (main streets) are going to go away anytime soon. But the face of the urban main street is going to change.”
You know, we could sit here all day and get nostalgic about businesses that are nevermore, from Joe Feller to Freiman’s to Rankin’s Hardware to the Rialto theatre.
But this is not about nostalgia. It’s about whether we’re creating main streets where, aside from coffee and coriander, there’s nothing much to buy.
To contact Kelly Egan, please call 613-726-5896 or email
[email protected]
Twitter: @KellyEganColumn
https://ottawacitizen.com/opinion/column...e-remake-of-our-traditional-main-streets
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