#448 Ward 13 Connection - money to the Byward Market and Tourism

Regardless, visible drug use and its debris is a real, commonly cited reason people avoid the Market, and no amount of streetscaping, plazas, or a destination building fixes that if the underlying safety/visibility problem isn't addressed at the same time.

What's Planned for the ByWard Market?

A check on the redevelopment plan, the agency running it.

The ByWard Market shows up in a lot of campaign conversation as shorthand  such as "we need to fix the Market" — without much clarity on what's actually approved, funded, underway, or stalled. Here's where things stand as of late August 2026.

The plan itself is recycled

The ByWard Market Public Realm Plan was approved by Council back in January 2021, as a roughly $129-million vision for the district: a pedestrian-first street network along William Street and ByWard Market Square, wider sidewalks, more greenery, and a new "destination building" replacing the aging municipal parking garage at 70 Clarence Street.

 At the time, staff described the neighbourhood as struggling and in need of a physical transformation to match its role as one of the city's biggest tourism draws.

What's changed recently is implementation. In March 2026, Council approved a follow-up report — "Advancing the ByWard Market" — that moves the 2021 plan from vision into an active, coordinated redevelopment program. 

That report recommends close to $8 million for design work on three priority pieces: 

• the historic market building at 55 ByWard Market Square, 
• a new plaza on York Street, and 
• the Clarence Street garage ( put it underground? For $50 large)

Closer to 2027 is the smaller, cheaper, more visible stuff: a branding strategy, a two-day night market, pedestrian underpass lighting, and programming initiatives like "Best of ByWard." 

Those are real and worth having, but they're not the structural fixes — the building, the plaza, the garage — that the "revitalization" language points to.

Two options are still on the table for what actually replaces the garage. In the meantime, the City has converted it to short-term pay-and-display parking while longer-range mobility planning continues.

There's a soft deadline in the background: 2027 marks the ByWard Market's 200th anniversary, and City staff have pointed to that milestone as a target for visible progress. Its not critical in my view.

This is a multi-year capital spending file. The design money is approved; construction money and a final decision on 70 Clarence is not it still has to come back to Council. 

The City's confirmed, funded commitment right now is about $7.4M in design-phase capital authority, structured to be repaid from hotel-tax revenue rather than general taxation. 

The $200M total project cost is a staff estimate, not an approved budget based on aan underground parking space. Council has only authorized staff to go find the money for it, with construction on the three anchor projects potentially still three-plus years out. 

There is a gap between the "$200M revitalization" headline and the much smaller, hotel-tax-backed amount actually on the books.

Anyone elected this October will be voting on the next phase, not the whole thing.

Who actually runs the Market?

The governance has changed twice in the last few years and it's easy to reference an organization that no longer exists. 

There is no ByWard Market BIA anymore. 

In 2023, Council dissolved the old Business Improvement Area and merged it with the City's market-management corporation into a single body: the ByWard Market District Authority (BMDA), a municipal services corporation with its own board. 

BMDA now runs vendor leasing, event programming, and day-to-day operations for both the ByWard and Parkdale markets. 

The City's Director of Economic Development Services sits on BMDA's board as an ex-officio member, and Economic Development Services provides a liaison function — but BMDA otherwise operates at arm's length.

What just happened

On August 18, 2026, BMDA parted ways with its executive director, Victoria Williston, after seven months in the role. The board's public explanation was minimal — a decision to "move in a different direction," described as internal and private, with no further comment and no announced replacement. 

Williston had been publicly framing BMDA's strategy around partnerships with Ottawa Tourism, the City, and the Board of Trade to rebuild foot traffic, and had highlighted concrete work already delivered, including a live music space and a night ambassador program.

This lands at an awkward moment. The Public Realm Plan redevelopment just moved from approval into design. 

The 200th-anniversary programming for 2026-2027 is supposed to be co-led by Ottawa Tourism and BMDA together.

 And BMDA is now doing both of those things without a permanent executive director, roughly five months after Council approved the redevelopment program it's meant to help deliver.

Where Ottawa Tourism fits in

Ottawa Tourism isn't a City department and isn't part of BMDA's governance structure, but it isn't a distant observer either. As a funded, active partner: it's co-leading the Bytown/ByWard Market 200th-anniversary programming alongside a City-funded temporary staff position, and BMDA maintains a dedicated "Tourism Liaison Lead" role focused on grants and major public events — a direct working relationship between the two organizations. 

When Ottawa Tourism says it will be "following" the Public Realm Plan, festival infrastructure, and the destination building, that's not a general industry interest — it's a stake in projects it's actively co-delivering. This raises  fair, concrete questions that any resident — or candidate — can reasonably ask over the next few months:

• Does BMDA's leadership gap slow down the design work already funded for 55 ByWard Market Square, the York Street plaza, or the Clarence Street garage decision?
• Who is accountable for the 200th-anniversary programming timeline while BMDA operates without a permanent executive director?
• What's the actual reason behind the departure? "Internal and private" is a legitimate answer for a personnel matter, but BMDA is a municipal services corporation spending public money and delivering a Council-approved public plan — residents are entitled to know whether this reflects a strategy disagreement, a governance problem, or something else, once it can be disclosed responsibly.
• Is this an isolated event, or part of a pattern? BMDA's structure itself is only three years old, created by merging two prior organizations. A second major leadership change this quickly is worth tracking.

The Market redevelopment is popular, funded (for now, in its design phase), and has deadline pressure from the 2027 anniversary. 

Whether it stays on track depends less on the plan itself — which is well documented — and more on whether the organization responsible for delivering it can find stable leadership before the next round of decisions comes back to Council.

Regardless, visible drug use and its debris is a real, commonly cited reason people avoid the Market, and no amount of streetscaping, plazas, or a destination building fixes that if the underlying safety/visibility problem isn't addressed at the same time.