Move over Snobsville and say hello to St. Albert, the “botanic arts” capital.
The city’s efforts to create a tourism brand for St. Albert took a jolly green giant’s step forward last week when a weeklong brainstorming session landed on “botanic arts” as the front-runner. It’s hoped this gardening-related theme will draw visitors to St. Albert, building on successes of existing locations like Hole’s Greenhouse and Gardens.
The botanic arts brand is not a done deal, but already stands above ideas like a performing arts capital or sports city. Marketing-gun-for-hire Roger Brooks of Seattle-based Destination Development International believes botanic arts presents the strongest potential as an economic driver. It sure beats “expensive bedroom community,” the bum rap Brooks uncovered last year during his first visit to the region.
Although early in the process, support for the botanic theme has started to sprout from the likes of Mayor Nolan Crouse and the chamber of commerce. The real test of the growing brand lies in a feasibility study Brooks’ team will undertake before presenting an action plan this October, after the growing season.
The goal of a community brand is to set St. Albert apart as a place to live, work and visit. It’s more than a shallow exercise like developing taglines such as “Community of Choice,” which tells us very little about our city. A city’s brand has to build on what’s happening on the ground.
For several months a year St. Albert has a well deserved reputation as a beautiful, green city with rolling hills, tree-lined boulevards and parks a-plenty. In addition to Hole’s, there are numerous destinations to build a brand around, from the St. Albert Botanic Park to the farmers’ market, Sturgeon River Valley and Red Willow Park, River Lot 56, and Lois Hole Centennial Provincial Park to name a few. The latter could become a major attraction if plans move ahead to develop a gateway to the park and wetland interpretive centre.
St. Albert also has a wealth of community groups that could help solidify the botanic vision, from the local garden club to environmental conservationists like the Big Lake Environment Support Society. These groups already host green-related events, from garden tours to charity food donations to an annual bird-watching fest. Perhaps they could flourish even more if the wider community and businesses buy in.
But for all the green St. Albert has going for it from May to September, it is still a winter city. The branding committee hopes winter classes could help stretch the botanic brand to 12 months, but is that going to be enough to bring in visitors when the sky is a dull grey and the mercury has dipped to -25 C? The Sturgeon River poses another challenge for the brand. Algae blooms cause the river to glow greener than the trees in the summer. Cleaning up the Sturgeon would be a pivotal step to any successful botanic brand.
The success of St. Albert, botanic arts capital could depend on another kind of green. Council committed $90,000 to hire Brooks, hardly enough to mount the kind of marketing campaign that will get St. Albert noticed. The seed has been planted but it will take time to see what sprouts.
Bryan Alary is an editor at the Gazette and the paper’s former civic affairs’ writer.
