EDI next business to leave downtown

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Mark McVey not only lives in the downtown but owns a building on Third Avenue. He says he is concerned the more businesses vacate the area, the more of a criminal element they attract.

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“So there’s a chance that, yeah, you have more vacancy, there could be an increase in broken windows and, hopefully not, but fires. We’ve seen a few fires downtown. Is there a chance there may be more of that? There could be. Because nobody’s going to be keeping their eyeballs on that space quite the same way.”

Dan McLaren was EDI’s neighbour with Commonwealth Financial. He credits his efforts in getting the firm to settle in the downtown based on assurances things were getting better in the downtown. And they were. And now he says they aren’t.

“Many of the crimes that happen down here – the police are frustrated, they arrest these criminals, and they are criminals, and when they actually take them to court, the Crown refuses to prosecute. And when you, off-the-record, talk to Crown, they’ll tell you they have no problem prosecuting them. But the provincial government and the Attorney General’s office tell them it’s not a priority.’

He says everything that is happening in the downtown is predictable because that’s the way it has been designed to work. And the provincial government has no intention of doing anything differently.

But EDI, off-camera, also criticized the parking regime for downtown is undesirable. And that’s why McVey also moved his offices out of downtown.

“It was a day-to-day problem for my realtors who couldn’t come in, drop off a contract, go out to show a property come back downtown and they’d have their car towed. When really, they were only parked an hour downtown, but because it spaced over a three-hour window, it was deemed that they were parked for over three hours.”

However, he says when he would complain the City would counter that there are a number of parking lots available to folks who frequent the downtown.