BONNYVILLE – The Town of Bonnyville has announced plans to revitalize the downtown core and main street in Bonnyville. The municipality is in phase one of the plan and hopes to complete a final Streetscape Strategy by June 2025.
“The Downtown and Main Street Streetscape and Urban Landscape Design Strategy project will create a vision for the downtown core and main street and establish strategies to guide revitalization efforts,” announced the Town of Bonnyville.
The project will focus on 50 Avenue (Highway 28) from 55th Street to the C2 Centre.
Mark Laver, Economic Development Officer with the Town of Bonnyville, said the Town will be looking for input from residents and business owners, to help guide the development of the strategy.
A project website is available at https://bonnyville.udconnect.net/ where people can sign up for a mailing list to receive emails about future community engagement opportunities, and have their voices heard.
The project started in October, and phase one includes a background review. Laver reported that the Town of Bonnyville had a ‘kick-off’ meeting with consultants on Nov. 7.
“The meeting went well. It was about getting our ducks in a row and our requests for information from the consultants. They look at our street plans, infrastructure, utility plans, as well as all the other related information,” said Laver.
He said the project came out of the Town of Bonnyville's economic development committee.
“The desire that we’ve heard from the public on multiple occasions in the past couple of years is that the Town needs a freshen-up, so to speak,” said Laver.
He explained that they are going to improve on the existing streetscape and see what needs to be maintained or enhanced. They will focus on enhancing facade improvements and investigate things like lighting and brickwork.
“We want business owners and the public's opinions on all of that, of course, to help guide us in the project. We’ve heard people say ‘You know it’s really nice, it just needs a little bit, and a little bit will go a long way’,” said Laver.