Main Street improvements encourage pedestrians to absorb local history, enjoy natural viewpoints and discover restaurants, boutiques and other businesses.
Tofino has grown and evolved over the past several decades, becoming a major tourism destination. While the community originally grew inland from the water, the advent of new highways and roads, rapid growth and decades of development and redevelopment have resulted in a diverse mixture of building forms and functions. The need for improvements in downtown Tofino has been recognized by civic and business leaders.
This component of the multi-phase beautification and revitalization project will focus on the Main Street, considered to be the historic commerce centre of Tofino. The Main Street and harbour area are a key point of departure and arrival for many of the region’s First Nations, as well as a departure point for attractions, such as Meares Island Tribal Park and Clayoquot Sound. A new continuous pedestrian connection, redistributed parking, new landscaping, strategically-located public seating and amenity areas and weather shelters are part of the project. This builds on the success of the first phase of revitalization, at Campbell and Fourth Streets, which has led to positive economic impacts including the sale of key commercial property, new business startups, new public facility redevelopment and a large increase in foot traffic resulting in increased business profits.
Completed in December 2017, the revitalized downtown now showcases Tofino’s heritage and historic assets, stimulating investment in existing commercial properties, improving foot traffic to local businesses and enhancing accessibility of the built environment. This phase of redevelopment has strengthen the visitor connection to the waterfront and will set the stage for the future development of a scenic waterfront walkway, highlighting Tofino’s working waterfront.
Island Coastal Economic Trust approved funding for this project in 2017 through the Capital and Innovation program.
We work in reciprocal relationships with coastal communities across the ancestral territories of the Kwak̓wala, Nuučaan̓uɫ, Éy7á7juuthem, Ligwilda'xw, Pəntl'áč, She shashishalhem, Sḵwx̱wú7mesh, Hul’q’umi’num’, diitiidʔaatx̣, SENĆOŦEN, Lekwungen, and T’Sou-ke speaking peoples.
