Destination Square

Goderich is a gem.  Location is second-to-none, and our downtown core is getting dressed to the nines.

What we don’t have is an identity.  Bayfield is the Quaint Village With Money.  Grand Bend is the Happening Spot for Twenty-Somethings.  St. Jacobs is The Market.  St. Mary’s has The Hill.  Blyth and Stratford scream Arts.

Goderich, well… we’re a conundrum.  Blue/white-collar, a PeeWee town with a beach, newspaper with no freelance, skate park vs. bird sanctuary… We lack an identity.

Attracting retirees to the most beautiful town in Canada? Done and done. It’s good for our economy and worth investing in. Easy.

Now that the Industrial Revolution is over, what do we do for the sweet moolah?  Attract the dinks… dinks as in Dual Income No Kids!  Those are the people we want here spending ALL of their expendable income.  But they’re not here. Why? What are these people looking for?  An experience.

Dinks need to know our name, then come here and see some effin’ activity: people selling cool shit, cooking cool shit, playing hard, beaching in style, crowding into pubs, smiling and laughing under lots of lights. They need to crave the status boost that a weekend in sexy ol’ Goderich offers.

Check it: Classy fire pads, benches, a bar and waterbike rentals – all down at a freshly-sanded beach.

Boaters out into the evening with the lights on, triathlons and races of all sorts, pompous trail signs and tours, bike rentals for a dollar, basketball nets all over the place – random outdoor workout equipment, even.

Fireworks for no reason, buskers, retro outdoor movies, tons of live plays and comedy, tours of local shops that make yummy stuff like jewellery, guitars and chocolates.

Farmers’ markets, sidewalks sales, bathrooms, food carts everywhere, stores open late.  Get those walking street plays back… a vineyard or two on orchard line… outdoor massage; cool-looking taxis; a fabulous mayor who scraps antiquated bylaws..?

Physical fitness and emotional wellbeing are all the rage – and for good reason!  We’ve got what city-dwellers need!  But where are all the big, brassy advertisements telling them so?

“Destination Square”.  Peeps should cry themselves to sleep if they miss a day in Goderich.  They need to be packing up their laptops, moving here and telling their friends.

It wouldn’t take much.  If locals go crazy enjoying this town and honking their own horn on social media – with a few tweaks from council – we’ll land ourselves on the dinks’ GPS as Destination Square: The Place to Be.