As McBryan announces EDBA exit, she sketches out a hopeful future for downtown

Puneeta McBryan said she will leave her role as CEO of the Edmonton Downtown Business Association once she has helped hire a successor, but not because she is moving to a new gig or has ambitions for the coming municipal election.

"The decision was a long time coming," McBryan told Taproot. "My kid is growing up really fast, and I want to be home more. This is very much a personal decision, just as much as it is a career decision."

McBryan was hired in December 2020 and has led the EDBA, and in some ways downtown, through challenging times since. From the COVID-19 pandemic and the resultant shift in downtown work and leisure patterns, to social conditions that leave some feeling unsafe on downtown streets, McBryan has fought a challenging battle while stewarding new events focused on bringing fun and funding back downtown to stimulate business growth.

McBryan said her next chapter will be deciding what to do next, and underlined to Taproot she will not work for a candidate or run as one in October's municipal election. On that point, she joked that some already call her role the 14th member of council. "Municipal politics is just hard," she said. "I have so much respect for the people who do it, but I don't think I could, especially after getting a little taste of it in this job."

During McBryan's time heading EDBA, she has helped lead several projects, including the annual Imagining Downtown event, Downtown Spark (which changed forms until it was replaced by block parties), two alley transformation projects, the Downtown Ambassadors program, the Edmonton downtown gift card, the Downtown Winterval festival, the resurrection of the Downtown Farmers' Market, and three business grants funded by the Government of Alberta and the City of Edmonton.

Taproot covered one of those grants, known as the Downtown Retail Attraction project. It saw six businesses receive $212,000. Result: One business left downtown within a year but five others have set up downtown, including Foosh, Obj3cts, and Le Belle Arti, with The Den, the final grant recipient, opening this month. The business association now also operates entertainment districts for the City of Edmonton on both Rice Howard Way and 104 Street (Taproot recently reported that alcohol must be served in disposable plastic cups). And the aforementioned Core Patrol can no longer provide daytime service because funding for those hours has run out.

Mark Anderson, the EBDA's board chair and a managing director for CBRE, said McBryan made change. "She raised the bar and ultimately redefined the work that a Business Improvement Area should be doing in Edmonton," Anderson wrote in a statement. "The EDBA is now in the best position it has ever been in."

Anderson pointed out that in just the past two years, McBryan spoke at more than 13 city council meetings, and met with 20 MLAs, cabinet ministers, and Premier Danielle Smith, plus federal and international leaders, on behalf of the EDBA.

What next for downtown?

McBryan shared news of her departure during the Downtown Safety & Vibrancy Summit that the association co-hosted with BOMA Edmonton and North on June 17 — another event that launched during her tenure.

In a chat with Taproot at the event, McBryan reflected on her time at EDBA, and how downtown might be improved in the future.

She said that she was shocked by the distress people experienced downtown when she started her job in December 2020.

"I felt so overwhelmed and afraid for our city and the people on the streets," she said. "It was terrifying. It was an education in, 'Whose job is this? How do we deal with these issues? What are the gaps?' It feels like it's taken me four and a half years just to figure it out … If there are things I don't know after four and a half years of trying to figure all this out, there's so much stuff that the rest of our business community definitely doesn't know."

The event included voices from the City of Edmonton, Bent Arrow Traditional Healing Society, Edmonton City Centre, REACH Edmonton, Boyle Street Community Services, the Edmonton Police Service, and others.

Many of the voices said proactive work to connect non-profits with businesses are one of the keys to improving downtown safety.

Another theme was an emphasis on collaboration and coordination between the organizations providing social services, which McBryan said are paramount to creating a safer downtown.

"It's less helpful when (collaboration and coordination) becomes a political football," she said. "It's way more helpful when it's the sector themselves saying, 'Yes, we need to work closely together. Yes, we need to better monitor and measure what we're trying to achieve. Who is accountable for what?' That could be transformational."

Gemma Dunn, the executive director of ECVO, told Taproot in April that her organization is now working to foster collaboration among service providers.

As the municipal election approaches, McBryan said politicians should listen to the people who are already working on downtown safety and vibrancy, rather than reinvent the wheel.

"The work that needs to happen isn't at the political level," she said. "It needs to transcend the election cycle. I think, often, when politicians get ahold of an idea or ideology, that can actually derail the long-term, really valuable work that the people in this room are trying to do."

Funding is critical, she said, adding that the employees who administer it need to step up and fight for downtown's success.

"There's a role from the funder — and that's people who work in the government, not politicians," she said. "People who are making those funding decisions and building relationships with service providers can say, 'We want to focus on getting this right. We don't want to just sprinkle the money around. We want a coordinated strategy.'"

McBryan's contract with the EBDA began began in December 2020 and wraps in November. Her precise exit date is subject to finding a new leader, she said, but her plan is to stay on to transition the new hire into the role and give them a formal introduction at the association's annual general meeting in mid-October.