Come along and there'll be a surprise guest at the end, District of Squamish planner Sarah McJannet says.
After a summer hiatus, the municipality is hosting its second Downtown Transformation Initiative workshop on Monday (Oct. 28). Last May, Squamish residents packed the Garibaldi Room at the Howe Sound Inn and Brewing Co. to take part in the district's first brainstorming event with the aim to invigorate Squamish's commercial core.
The workshops are meant to generate short- and long-term actions for the district, McJannet said. They're part of the municipality's downtown transformation plan, which includes the Downtown Squamish Summer Series events and the district's efforts to create a park on its newly acquired Mamquam Blind Channel waterfront lot.
Since the district showcased branding experts Destination Development International's informational video at its first workshop, the municipality has hired its founder to work on branding Squamish.
The branding is sort of a project that is in tandem, McJannet said.
Next week's workshop will focus on downtown activity, she said. At the event, the district will display projects compiled by a class of University of British Columbia Landscape Architecture (LARC) students last April that focus on new and creative ways to re-energize downtown, McJannet said. After the webinar, former UBC landscape student Pietra Basilij will present her project's findings.
Discussion will be broken out into separate issues following the presentations, with a chance for residents to provide input.
Some of the conversations are feeding into and providing information for the whole transformation process, McJannet said.
The event will end with a special guest, but McJannet was tight-lipped about the person's identity. The meeting takes place Monday from 6 to 9 p.m. at the Howe Sound Brew Pub in the Garibaldi Room. You can follow it on twitter using the hashtag #heartofsquamish.
