Brandon's downtown showing signs of turnaround, advocates say
Downtown Development Corporation says businesses in core grew by 7% this year
Brandon is seeing a business resurgence in what was once a languishing downtown core, say advocates including the head of a development organization in southwestern Manitoba's biggest city.
Over the last 12 months, there's been a more than seven per cent jump in the number of businesses in Brandon's core, with around 25 new businesses opening, said Emmanuel Ahaneku, the executive director of the Brandon Downtown Development Corporation. Now, more than 400 full-time businesses are operating in the district.
"This is the most prosperous we've been post-COVID," Ahaneku said. "These are brand new businesses moving from other parts of the city to downtown, some of them [from] outside the city of Brandon to downtown."
Corey Trumbley, owner of I Want That Stuff, recently moved his gaming and collectibles store to the downtown after 13 years of operations in Brandon. The shop needed bigger space for its growing businesses, and downtown seemed like the right fit, he said — something that would have been unimaginable a decade ago.
"It's been big improvements over the last few years," he said. "Five to 10 years ago … downtown might not have had quite the glow up it's experienced."
One of the area's biggest challenges remains countering stigma, said Emmy Sanderson, the executive director of Brandon's newly established Downtown Business Improvement Zone, but showcasing downtown as the heart of the city has started to change that.
"I understand people … maybe they don't feel safe," she said. "There's not the traffic on the sidewalks and all that. The solution to that is more people."
That means the core needs more businesses and more housing, she said.
Amanda Dupuis, the City of Brandon's community housing and wellness programmer, also said perception remains an issue — a stigma the core has faced since she moved to Brandon 25 years ago.
But "that public perception piece is often not based in reality. It's based on what other people have told you," Dupuis said.
The key to change is to "get people … to come down and actually experience on their own what it's like to be down here, and get to know people," she said.
Dupuis also said she's seeing more pride in the core, pointing to the city's graffiti removal program, which had 71 applications when it started in 2022 and grew to more than 90 in 2023.
That's proof people want to change the face of downtown, she said.
And Sanderson said businesses like I Want That Stuff are getting new people visiting the core, and the BIZ is already seeing improvements. It's grown from a handful of members at the start of 2024 to around 120 as of November.
Trumbley hopes getting people to visit and have fun in the district will help change perceptions.
"A big push going forward is going to be, you know, kind of rehabilitating the image of downtown Brandon," he said. "[There are] new and exciting things down here."
City support
Trumbley also said part of the appeal of moving downtown is a business community that is keen to collaborate, noting I Want That Stuff has worked closely with the Downtown BIZ, and also worked with the Brandon Downtown Development Corporation to land grants that helped pay for updates to flooring, walls and signage.
Opportunities like that create incentive to choose downtown, with the support giving businesses an extra edge, he said.
In 2024, the development corporation supported 85 downtown projects, worth about $2 million in total, with about $500,000 in funding, Ahaneku said. The corporation can provide help with improvements to commercial spaces, facades and storefronts, giving qualifying businesses access to up to $140,000 in support.
"The key thing is to make sure they succeed, they survive, they thrive, they're able, they're profitable," Ahaneku said. Those businesses, in turn, become advocates for the downtown.
That growth also encourages economic investment in the core district's commercial and residential properties — a key tax base for the city, Ahaneku said.
The tax boost helps pay for services citywide, said Dupuis.
The city would also like to see more market housing in the core, she said.
Sanderson also said a healthy downtown, with both residential and commercial residents, "has such a strong tax base that it feeds the whole city."
That sort of density growth helps the city's coffers by increasing commercial and residential property values, while also generating more jobs that build up the economy, said Sanderson.
A healthy downtown, she said, becomes an "absolute economic powerhouse for the entire city."
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