The North Bay & District Chamber of Commerce is moving from a prime piece of city-owned highway property to the downtown core this fall.
After 30 years of being located on Seymour Street, just off Highway 11-17, the chamber will be taking up residence at the corner of Main Street East and Wylde Street.
Executive director Patti Carr said though the chamber only paid the city $1 a year to lease the building, it was mandated to operate both the Regional Tourist Information Centre on a year-round basis and the Dionne Quints Museum on a seasonal basis.
And it was putting a strain on her three-member staff and the chamber’s finances.
With no consistent flow of funds from the province or the City of North Bay, “we subsidize a lot of that cost and it’s just getting harder and harder.
“We’ve been fairing okay (financially) but there are a lot of things we should be doing better in getting back to our core mandate of advocacy and value for our members. And the board decided it was time to make a change.”
With a restructured board of directors – shrinking from 25 members to 13 – the decision was made to return the chamber to its core principles of organizational growth, better business connection, and providing more support to its members.
Carr said relinquishing a highly visible location and 5,000 square of feet of space to move into smaller digs of 1,600 square feet in the downtown core, formerly occupied by Dominion Lending, suits her just fine.
“I think it’s going to be a good change because advocacy is my passion and I’ve been taken away from that. I don’t have a policy person on staff and some chambers do.”
It’s also the best fit for the chamber to contribute to the health and vibrancy of the downtown and to be closer to small businesses, she said.
“We’ve been pulled in too many directions and we need to get back to working for our members.”
The other reasoning behind the move explained Carr is that visitor numbers are dropping to both the information centre and the museum.
Visitation to the information centre has declined from 45,000 30 years ago to 13,000 today, and on the museum side from 15,000 to less than 3,000 during the same time frame.
Carr said with motorists using technology to book vacations and more travel information available online, the need for a physical outlet was becoming less and less.“They’re still coming, they just don’t need to stop at our location.”
The chamber won’t be dropping the tourism function entirely as they will be hiring a tourism information officer under a new entity called Tourism North Bay. The ribbon cutting for the new location is scheduled for Small Business Week during week of October 19-24.
Carr said the Seymour property, which is surrounded by a hotel and car dealerships, will likely be put up for sale by the city.
What happens with the museum and the artifact is a matter under discussion with the city, said Carr.
They’re looking at options for another museum to take portions of the artifacts or find someone interested in the museum’s upkeep, which is the actually the home the Dionne Quints were born in. The 1930s-era home has been moved twice from Corbeil to Callander and to North Bay.
