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Chamber drops request to rename downtown

Will focus efforts on Perron District brand

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File photo/St. Albert Gazette

Instead of asking the city to rename St. Albert's downtown, the St. Albert and District Chamber of Commerce will instead focus on branding the area as the Perron District.

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The St. Albert and District Chamber of Commerce has dropped its request to formally rename the city’s downtown as the Perron District.

The chamber had approached council last August with the request but has since decided on a more informal approach that involves branding the area but not officially changing its name, said president and CEO Lynda Moffat.

“Our intention is that the Perron District is the brand. It’s still our downtown,” Moffat said. “If you actually go through the formal naming process that the city has, that’s not where we want to go.”

Downtown businesses, working through the chamber’s Perron District committee, have already undertaken some work to brand the area and that will continue, Moffat said.

Businesses have designed a logo, printed a guide to the area and advertised with the brand, she said.

“They’ve asked the city to start using that as well, not as a name but as a brand,” Moffat said.

The downtown already has unique lampposts and the chamber is asking the city to support its branding efforts by not installing any of these posts elsewhere in the city. The chamber would also like the city to use the words “Perron District” on its directional signage and when describing events taking place downtown.

The city is already planning to install such signage this year, said Bob Treidler, general manager of business and strategic services.

Ideally, Moffat is hoping that the words Perron District will become recognizable to people throughout the Capital region in much the same way as Old Strathcona.

Mayor Nolan Crouse had mixed feelings about the emergence of the Perron District as the preferred term for downtown. While it’s a name that’s easy to say and relate to, it doesn’t honour a 2002 decision that officially named the area the Arts and Heritage District, he said.

“Names should last forever,” Crouse said.

“It just didn’t seem to be an appropriate thing to rescind another council’s decision made eight years ago and yet it did not appear to be worth the fight to keep the name so I just let it go.”