On a warm weekday downtown, Chris Stevens has opened the doors to her tiny shop on Lower Johnson Street while she carefully cuts a brim for one of her custom hats.
Downtown businesses also have to deal with street crime like vandalism and shoplifting, along with parking issues and sometimes confusing bike lanes that irk vehicle-oriented shoppers. The report said the streetfront and retail vacancy rate dropped by about 1% last year from 2022, to 9.2%. Meanwhile, the number of people living downtown is on the upswing, with six rental and two condo projects under construction.
“We need to have landlords and the local government supporting small businesses to make spaces more accessible,” said Stevens. “As it is, they’re expensive and they’re only accessible to chains … that kills a downtown.” After a major renovation of a former insurance office, Meeker opened Goldenball Mercantile in time for Christmas. “We love the city and we wanted to capture the larger audience of Victoria locals and also the booming tourism business,” said Meeker, adding both of her sons go to the University of Victoria and work at the store.She said what makes Goldenball special is her efforts to source high-end and unique products that can’t be found in other stores.
“This is just one example of why we don’t sell a product, we tell a story. Let the story sell the goods on its own merit.” “Downtown has a great vibe,” says Zoghbi, who took over the 40-year-old business in 2017. “It’s definitely growing, so we are offering more services because of that.Running a business downtown is not without problems, however. He said he has to clean up the sidewalks most mornings and the bike lanes along Fort Street are causing confusion for some customers.
At Mel Lingerie, located on the outside of the Bay Centre, owner Melissa Dean tries to keep everybody happy. Born and raised in Victoria, Dean calls downtown a special place where local businesses benefit from each other’s presence and variety. Adkins, who previously worked in film and television as an actor and in other roles, said when work on Vancouver productions halted during the pandemic, she moved to Victoria with hopes of creating a shop.
Adkins said Victoria is fortunate to have heritage-style buildings that make the city’s downtown unique. Despite some empty spaces on Lower Johnson, she said she’s excited to see newcomers arrive with fresh ideasThe latest on The Latest Scoop The store will be the 12th for the Vancouver-based company, which tests new markets with pop-up stores before committing to long-term leases, and has found Victoria is a strong market for a second store.“It’s like a test drive. If you buy a car you want to test drive it and that’s sort of what we do with retail locations.