A new online portal was unveiled today that will track the progress of Ottawa’s downtown revitalization plan and allow for better transparency, the head of the Ottawa Board of Trade says.

In May 2024, the board of trade launched the Downtown Ottawa Action Agenda, which detailed 60 steps needed to bring new life to the city’s downtown core by 2034. The plan was developed together with the City of Ottawa, Ottawa Tourism, Invest Ottawa, BOMA Ottawa, and the National Capital Commission. It described four main outcomes needed to make the downtown desirable: creating “affordable, walking, amenity-rich communities;” investing in infrastructure, public realm and placemaking; increasing employment and diversifying the economy; and making the area inclusive by ensuring safety.

Board of trade president and CEO Sueling Ching told OBJ last month that the new online tracking system will create transparency. 

“We agreed to continue to work with community partners in order to shepherd the plan. Part of the strategy for us is to build confidence in the downtown, attract visitors, residents and entrepreneurs to the downtown. We have to make sure that we’re providing a good and accurate sense of what’s going on,” she said. 

“We are tracking the 60-plus steps in the plan, looking for opportunities to synergize those mandates and we’re getting ready to report back on that through the online portal on the website.”

The portal will track the progress of the agenda’s four main outcomes, Ching said, as well as poll residents about the downtown and allow them to share good news stories. 

“Since we launched the plan, there was the announcement of the Live Nation venue right in the ByWard Market. There’s been a lot of positive movement in the ByWard Market in terms of traffic. So we’re pulling all of those pieces together to create one downtown Ottawa story so that the community at large can build confidence in and look for opportunities to be part of the transformation,” Ching said.

The Downtown Ottawa Action Agenda calls for the addition of 40,000 residents to the area and 50,000 jobs by 2034. It also said that a $500-million fund would kickstart a series of projects, including “significant enhancements to the public realms of Sparks Street and ByWard Market,” as well as a new business incubator district and arts and culture corridor. 

Last November, the provincial government made a $20-million investment in tourism and downtown revitalization efforts over the next three years. Part of that investment was $450,000 toward the creation of a new “Downtown Vibrancy Office” managed by OBOT.

“The vibrancy office is mandated to convene stakeholders, to calibrate the work that’s being done and to communicate it back to stakeholders in the community at large, and the Downtown (Ottawa) Champions Table is a part of that responsibility,” Ching said.

The Downtown Ottawa Champions Table assembled in March is composed of people with the ability to influence decision-making and to leverage their networks in order to move the plan forward, Ching added.

Shawn Hamilton, a principal at Proveras Commercial Realty, is a member of the champions table. He said the group has convened twice and plans to continue to meet every two months.

He said the group has discussed “streamlining development approvals and the development process for new residential developments,” working with the federal government “to identify and prioritize a disposal list of federal properties,” and ways to improve safety and well-being as it relates to homelessness, addiction and mental health.

The biggest win so far, Hamilton said, was breaking down longstanding siloes between organizations such as the City of Ottawa, Invest Ottawa, Ottawa Tourism and the National Capital Commission. 

“We’ve got unification across various associations and platforms, all of whom are interested in the benefit of Ottawa,” he said.

In July, Ching authored an opinion piece in The Globe and Mail calling out the federal government’s proposal to trim spending by 15 per cent over the next three years and how it would negatively impact Ottawa. She told OBJ that such a move by the Liberal government brought back some of her and OBOT’s concerns for Ottawa’s downtown. 

While some data and anecdotal evidence might suggest things are improving in Ottawa’s downtown, Hamilton and Ching say that, while encouraging, it is not a reason to get complacent. 

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