Portage la Prairie's hoping to make the downtown core more of a destination for residents and visitors. Councillor Liz Driedger, who's also the city's planning and economic development chair, says Portage Regional Economic Development is working on a number of initiatives to bring people downtown. They include moving the PCU Centre farmers markets to Convention Corner on some days, and the introduction of buskers.

"Island Park is considered downtown, it's only two blocks away. So people are there enjoying the park for the day, Splash Island and all that. We just want to encourage people to move a little bit north, enjoy the shopping downtown, the eating establishments there, just to make a day of it."

As part of that work, Driedger notes PRED's also looking to promote Portage's downtown shops. She notes a new project known as Downtown Beat, aims to encourage more people to do their shopping downtown.

"What is at the core of this initiative is to give the public more of an awareness of what's downtown and some of the businesses that are there, that maybe you drive by but don't know are there. PRED is going through social media and more traditional media to raise awareness of the businesses that are there."

As part of promoting downtown, Driedger says they're also focusing active lifestyles, by encouraging people to walk to the downtown area from Island Park, or to ride their bikes.