Downtown Sault Ste. Marie just got a whole lot bigger

The new committee overseeing Sault Ste. Marie’s downtown is responsible for a much larger geographical swath of the city than its predecessor, the now-defunct Downtown Association.

The new downtown development committee, a creation of city council, took over from the member-supported Downtown Association effective New Year’s Day.

The Downtown Association’s boundaries consisted of a one-kilometre stretch of Queen Street from Gore to East Street. 

The new committee is still finalizing its policies and priorities, but Josh Ingram, who attended one of its meetings this week as a city staffer, said the new downtown boundaries are expected to be from Huron Street to the Canadian Bushplane Heritage Centre, and from the waterfront to Albert Street. 

At one point, consideration was given to extending that to Wellington Street, but Ingram said the block between Albert and Wellington was rejected because of a lack of businesses.

Committee members also learned at a meeting on Tuesday that a new downtown logo and branding developed by the Downtown Association just last year is expected to be replaced by the city’s 2019 visual identity and colours.

The seven-year-old city logo was designed to resemble the International Bridge and a medicine wheel, although SooToday readers in 2019 described it as looking like a badly sliced pizza or a basketball.

Even Mayor Matthew Shoemaker, who was a Ward 3 councillor at the time, initially opposed the pizza logo.

The mayor didn’t address the city logo at Tuesday’s meeting of the downtown development committee.

Committee members have identified five priorities for their work:

downtown events
communications
cleanliness and neighbourhood upkeep
safety
economic health and store vacancies

Committee member André Riopel, an ardent proponent of human-powered transportation, pushed for more attention on converting excess parking lots into new housing developments.