Ideas being sought to revitalise the City Centre

The Invercargill City Council wants to hear your ideas on how to revitalise Invercargill’s City Centre.

Councillor Norman Elder said Council was occupying the empty shop below the Kelvin Hotel on Esk Street for the next 10 days to invite people to come in and share their views on how to revamp the city’s CBD.

“We need the community to come forward with their ideas on how we can all breathe new life into Invercargill’s City Centre,” Cr Elder said.

The Council has indicated that one of its key priorities is to revitalise the City Centre and Cr Elder has been charged with leading this project.

An Inner City Steering Group, chaired by Cr Elder, was formed this year and has been assisted by William Watt Consulting and Kobus Mentz of UrbanismPlus, who is an urban designer and planner.

“The Group has identified that there is no ‘wow’ factor and the City Centre has lost its appeal.

“Pedestrian counts are down, there are gaps in retail frontages, upper floor vacancies are prevalent, some areas are unkempt and feel unsafe, there are many older buildings with structural problems and in poor repair and businesses are moving out,” Cr Elder said.

To address these issues the Group has identified eight priorities they believe are immediate and urgent. These are:

1. Promoting the city centre: promotion of business opportunities, events and activities.
2. Central city focus: first choice should be to locate in the city centre.
3. Promoting development: growing the economy to create new business opportunities and population growth.
4. Heritage: respect for our past while creating heritage for the future.
5. Parking and pedestrians: improve parking locations and pedestrian linkages to make it easier for people to move around the city centre.
6. Dee and Tay Streets: make it easier to cross these streets.
7. Public spaces: safe, relevant areas of open space are needed.
8. Arts and culture: facilitate events happening in the city centre.

 

The shop will be open seven days a week from lunchtime on Friday, September 23 to Monday, October 3.

“We really need people to take five minutes out while they are out and about shopping to tell us what you think of these eight priorities and how the city can improve its City Centre.”