Punjabi: ਆਓ, ਨਵਾਂ ਡਾਊਨਟਾਊਨ ਬਣਾਈਏ Hindi: आइए, एक नया डाउनटाउन बनाएं Urdu: آئیے، ایک نیا ڈاؤن ٹاؤن بنائیں Gujarati: ચાલો, નવું ડાઉનટાઉન બનાવીએ
A New Downtown: more people working, shopping, eating and investing in central Brampton, every day.
More jobs. More customers for local businesses. More private investment. A stronger commercial tax base.
Punjabi
ਇੱਕ ਨਵਾਂ ਡਾਊਨਟਾਊਨ: ਹਰ ਰੋਜ਼ ਸੈਂਟਰਲ ਬਰੈਂਪਟਨ ਵਿੱਚ ਹੋਰ ਲੋਕ ਕੰਮ ਕਰਨ, ਖਰੀਦਦਾਰੀ ਕਰਨ, ਖਾਣ-ਪੀਣ ਅਤੇ ਨਿਵੇਸ਼ ਕਰਨ।
ਹੋਰ ਨੌਕਰੀਆਂ। ਸਥਾਨਕ ਕਾਰੋਬਾਰਾਂ ਲਈ ਹੋਰ ਗਾਹਕ। ਹੋਰ ਨਿੱਜੀ ਨਿਵੇਸ਼। ਇੱਕ ਮਜ਼ਬੂਤ ਵਪਾਰਕ ਟੈਕਸ ਆਧਾਰ।
Hindi
एक नया डाउनटाउन: हर दिन सेंट्रल ब्रैम्पटन में ज़्यादा लोग काम करें, खरीदारी करें, खाना खाएं और निवेश करें।
ज़्यादा नौकरियां। स्थानीय व्यवसायों के लिए ज़्यादा ग्राहक। ज़्यादा निजी निवेश। एक मज़बूत व्यावसायिक टैक्स आधार।
Urdu
ایک نیا ڈاؤن ٹاؤن: ہر روز سینٹرل برامپٹن میں زیادہ لوگ کام کریں، خریداری کریں، کھانا کھائیں اور سرمایہ کاری کریں۔
مزید نوکریاں۔ مقامی کاروباروں کے لیے زیادہ گاہک۔ مزید نجی سرمایہ کاری۔ ایک مضبوط تجارتی ٹیکس بیس۔
Gujarati
એક નવું ડાઉનટાઉન: દરરોજ સેન્ટ્રલ બ્રેમ્પટનમાં વધુ લોકો કામ કરે, ખરીદી કરે, ખાવા-પીવા આવે અને રોકાણ કરે.
વધુ નોકરીઓ. સ્થાનિક વ્યવસાયો માટે વધુ ગ્રાહકો. વધુ ખાનગી રોકાણ. વધુ મજબૂત વ્યાપારી ટેક્સ આધાર.
Why do we need a New Downtown?
For almost twenty years, Brampton has tried to revive Four Corners through arts, culture and entertainment.
We built the Rose. We built Garden Square. We filled downtown with concerts, festivals and events.
Some of it worked. The Rose is a successful theatre. Garden Square is a good public space. Events bring people downtown.
But the bigger promise was economic revival.
That has not happened.
Arts and culture can bring thousands of people downtown on a Saturday night. They cannot, by themselves, put hundreds of employees downtown every weekday.
After almost twenty years, the clock is running down. It is time to pull the goalie and make a more aggressive offensive move.
Four Corners should be reset to its historic role: Brampton’s business and civic centre. It should be renamed “the Historic Downtown.”
Keep the Rose. Keep Garden Square. Keep the festivals. But build a daytime economy around them. Recruit professional offices, financial services, technology companies, government offices, institutional employers and small corporate headquarters.
The goal is simple: put more people downtown Monday to Friday.
Those employees buy coffee, eat lunch, use local services and support restaurants and shops. That is how a downtown economy begins to sustain itself.
Then look east.
Queen Street should become Brampton’s central commercial, office and entertainment corridor.
It already has traffic, visibility, restaurants, medical offices, retail and Peel Memorial as a major institutional anchor.
The Dairy Queen at 133 Queen Street East has operated there since 1960. McDonald’s, Swiss Chalet, Burger King and others have also chosen Queen over the years.
That tells us something. Businesses know people can find Queen, reach Queen and see them from Queen.
We should build on that. This is where we build our “New Downtown”
As older plazas and parking lots redevelop, encourage mixed-use buildings with restaurants and shops at street level and offices, services and housing above them.
Queen should become somewhere people stop, not simply the road they use to get somewhere else.
Then there is Kennedy Road South.
Kennedy may be the most overlooked opportunity in central Brampton because City Hall does not have to invent an identity for it.
Businesses are already doing that.
Frontier Heritage, Nayha Clothing, Rawaaz, Apna Punjab Fashions, Gill Jewellers and Textiles and others are creating a fashion and textile cluster. Restaurants such as PunjabLand and King Tandoori add food and nightlife.
Food. Fashion. Culture. Entertainment.
Help that grow.
Kennedy also has something increasingly rare: relatively affordable commercial space. That creates room for independent restaurants, designers, artists, musicians, retailers and small event operators.
Imagine Kennedy Road South becoming known across the GTA as a place to eat, shop for South Asian fashion, buy jewellery and textiles, see local art and spend an evening with friends.
The opportunity is already there. This is our “Arts, Culture and Fashion District.”
And these areas are close together.
Four Corners and Kennedy are only about a kilometre apart along Queen.
We do not need three downtowns. We need one downtown economy with different districts doing different jobs:
Four Corners as our business and civic centre.
Queen Street as our commercial, office and entertainment spine.
Kennedy Road South as our food, fashion and cultural district.
Then connect them with better sidewalks, lighting, transit, crossings, public spaces and rules that make it easier to open and grow a business.
As mayor, I will direct the City to create a Central Brampton Economic District Strategy built around those three areas.
And we will measure whether it works: office occupancy, storefront vacancies, new businesses, jobs, private investment, pedestrian traffic and commercial assessment growth.
Publish the numbers. Let taxpayers see the results.
We have spent almost twenty years trying to create activity downtown.
Now it is time to build an economy.
The businesses are already showing us where the opportunities are.
City Hall needs to notice, remove the barriers and help them grow.
One downtown economy. Different districts. A plan based on what is already working.
Four Years. One City. Let’s Build.
