How Kimberley's unique car-free centre has anchored its tourism for almost 50 years

By the late 1960s, residents of Kimberley, B.C. knew they had to diversify the local economy, which was centred around mining at the time.

But when you're a small town that's not on the main highway, you need to create reasons to get people to visit.

"We needed a reason for people to want to go the alternate route on the highway," said Marie Stang, who runs the Kimberley Heritage Museum.

"Being just sort of an ordinary, nice little town wasn't enough."

Five facts about Kimberley, B.C. voted B.C.'s best small town

2 years ago

Duration 1:23

Kimberley, B.C., has been crowned the winner of the Search for B.C.'s Best Small Town, after a seven-week competition between 128 communities. Here are five facts about the Kootenay city.

Today, the town is known for its ski hill, mountain biking and recreation opportunities. But at its heart is thetown square, whichresidents voted in creating more than 50 years ago, votingto change busySpokane Street into a pedestrian-only shopping area.

It was part of branding the community as the Bavarian city of the Rockies branding which today is mostly gone.

But the shopping area known as thePlatzl, with intersecting cobblestonelanes that twist through the city's downtown area is still a key part of what makes the town welcoming, and one of the distinctive features that helped Kimberleywinbest small town in B.C.in a bracket-style competition held by CBC over the past few weeks.

"Thewalkability of the Platzl, it encourages our visitors to mingle with the residents," said Kimberley Mayor Don McCormick.

Uncommon tourism strategy

The Platzl the word for "plaza" or "town square" in the Bavarian dialect of German remains Kimberley's largest business centre, featuring cheese, chocolate, and candy shops alongside restaurants and a ski and bike store, some of which still feature the Bavarian architecture and decor.

While creating pedestrian-only zones was something that happenedin some larger cities in the 1970s, it wasrarely initiated in smaller towns, according to David Monteyne, associate professor of architecture at the University of Calgary.

"[Kimberley] might be unique in the sense of the scale of the town," he said.

The town's efforts to diversify became much more pressing when the Sullivan Mine, once the world's largest lead-zinc mine and the city's largest employer, was decommissioned in 2001.

Two-thousand workers were laid off from the mine and the city took a $2 million hit in annual tax revenue, according to documents from Natural Resources Canada.

It left the city's business community devastated, saidMatt Lamb, president of the Kimberley Chamber of Commerce.

"You would have seen a lot of vacancies [in the Platzl]," he said.

Tourism takes off

But the community's foresight to diversify paid off, withtourist arrivals almost doubling over a decade, from 68,000 in 2011 to 128,000 in 2021.

"We've seen a complete turnaround," said Lamb. "The entire tone of the town has changed."

While the city does not track revenue generated by the Platzl alone, tourism generated $38.2 million in 2021, much of which was generated by businesses in the pedestrian-friendly centre.

Sandy James, a city planner and the founder of Walk Metro Vancouver, said that ski hills like Kimberley and Whistler that adopted car-free centres have shown the economic benefits of building a commercial centre centred around walking.

"What we've learned is that if you make a street for people to walk, people walk on it,"she said.

"We look at the 20th century, and it was about the automobilecity... but we need to stay physically fit, and attached to communities."