Downtown Prince George has won two awards at the Best in the West Awards one for safety and security and the other for marketing.
These awards are part of the annual Business Improvement Areas (BIA) of British Columbia and IDA Pacific Northwest Regional Conference, which took place in Coquitlam on May 3.
Downtown Prince George’s 'Clean and Safe Program' has won the award of excellence in the category of Safety and Security.
The program was awarded because it showcases the partnerships between Downtown Prince George, the City of Prince George, the Prince George Brain Injured Group, DART, GroundWork PG and ACME Janitor Services.
The organizations have designed a comprehensive and coordinated approach to alleyway and sidewalk clean-up, graffiti cover-up, preventative and call-out services for biohazard removal for private properties in the C1 Downtown Zone.
Downtown Prince George says the program has been critical in dealing with the increased debris, garbage, needles, biohazards, and graffiti through social enterprise and collaborative efforts over the last few years.
“We are proud of the collaborative efforts of our staff, our board, and the support and expertise from our funders, partners, stakeholders and downtown businesses.”, says Eoin Foley, President, Downtown Prince George, in a news release.
“It is great to be recognized by the BIA industry for our commitment and partnerships aimed at improving and promoting Downtown Prince George.”
The 'Downtown Prince George Multi-Media Marketing Campaign' was also recognized with an award of excellence in the category of Marketing and was made possible through Northern Development’s Marketing Initiative Grant.
The grant program assisted Downtown Prince George with an updated website that improved the navigation of relevant information by creating a community page and a business page.
It enabled Downton Prince George to build a more robust social media campaign and create a library of multimedia assets to ensure consistent messages and images through all media channels.
“These two Awards of Excellence mean that our colleagues have acknowledged that our work in Downtown Prince George exceeded the criteria and shone as examples of strategic excellence in these categories”, says Colleen Van Mook, executive director, Downtown Prince George.
“Considering the many challenges, we have faced in the last two years, it is encouraging to know that we are bringing good value to our members, our community and our industry colleagues.”
Business Improvement Areas of British Columbia represents 69 business districts, that make up mostly small and medium-sized businesses, and offers support to enable members to achieve excellence and the highest quality of livability in their business improvement areas
BIA says the comprehensive awards criteria ensure that winning submissions include unique initiatives, specific results, and implementation details that other BIA’s can learn from and that set a high standard of achievement and success.
