Townsman, 1991-04, Page 6Feeling the spirit
The Main Street Canada programme helps put
a new spirit of confidence in the Seaforth
business community
By Keith Roulston
Seaforth's Main Street looks like a
typically western Ontario town, the
kind city writers invariably call
"sleepy" but beneath the surface,
something different is happening
herc.While in many communities
there is a sense of fatigue, a sense of
thc inevitability of decline, people
who have viewed the scene in
Seaforth over the past five years mar-
vel at the change here.
There's a change in the spirit of thc
town they say. "I feel thcrc's more
interest in the town and more interest
in Seaforth from out of town," says
Bob Fisher, owner of the local Pizza
Train restaurant and chairman of the
Seaforth Business Improvement Area
(BIA), the association of local busi-
nesses dedicated to promoting the
town and through that, promoting
their own businesses.
The change Fisher talks about has
its roots in a 1986 decision by the
Town of Seaforth, the BIA and the
Local Architectural Conservancy
Advisory Committee (LACAC) to
apply to be part of the Main Street
Canada programme of Heritage
Canada. Scaforth is the kind of town
that is of interest to Heritage Canada.
Its Main Street is filled from one end
to the other with fine Victorian -era
buildings, most put up in a building
boom that followed a disastrous fire in
1876 that destroyed most of the street.
Heritage Canada set up the Main
Street programme to try to preserve
the beautiful streetscapes of small
town Canada from the ravages of
competition particularly from shop-
ping malls.
The planners at Heritage Canada,
Most visible example of what has happened to Seaforth's Main Street
if the Box Furniture renovation. Other changes have been more
subtle.
4 TOWNSMAN/APRIL-MAY 1991