Downtown gearing up for Step One of provincial reopening

Businesses in Belleville’s Downtown District are preparing for the province’s Step One reopening, currently scheduled for June 14.

Downtown District BIA Chair Kathryn Brown, owner of Kate’s Kitchen says business owners are excited about the prospect of reopening even if it’s only in a limited capacity to start.

While they would love to hear the province give the go ahead to jump into Step One ahead of schedule, Brown says they are preparing for June 14.

With COVID-19 numbers in Belleville currently at their lowest levels in weeks, Brown thinks it would be nice to return to the previous colour coded system as this area would be at the green level and close to fully reopened.

However, she understands why a slower paced, provincial reopening is better, especially with faster spreading variants of the virus so prominent.

“But, I respect the fact they were making a decision based on they did not want to encourage people to travel. If we’re green, and we did see it when we were green, people were travelling here. And so I have to respect the fact that that was a decision that they made.”

Brown says the BIA has been working hard to keep people invested in the downtown, partnering with the library for its family-themed Story Walk where families can read stories placed in downtown windows and running its Window Shopping campaign where people can purchase items placed in the store windows by scanning a QR code.

Brown says businesses missed out on Boxing Day sales and winter sales due to the lockdown in the second wave of the pandemic and the current lockdown has affected spring sales.

She adds businesses are getting desperate.

“Those of us who have inventory really want to get open and sell it and for those that have been struggling to get inventory, they’re hoping that with the reopening across Ontario that some of that will start to flow again. It’s been a challenge for both ways.”

Brown says restaurants have had trouble determining how much food to have on hand for takeout orders that can fluctuate greatly from day to day.

The Downtown District BIA is bringing back its Al Fresco program which proved hugely popular in bringing people to the downtown last summer.

Downtown sidewalks and select parking spaces will be transformed into seating and safe gathering spaces, while parklets painted by local authors will once again be in place in front of some restaurants, allowing them to extend their patios.