New Canaan Drives Downtown Business Traffic

CBIA BizCast host Ali Warshavsky speaks with New Canaan Chamber of Commerce executive director Laura Budd and town administrative officer Tucker Murphy about the creative ways they have encouraged the community to visit town businesses during the pandemic.

Murphy said some stores permanently closed their doors this past year. Instead of empty storefronts downtown, they collaborated with local artists to fill the windows with pictures of New Canaan landmarks.

“It gave us a way to enhance the look, the overall look, we are loving doing it,” Murphy said. “We are trying to put them in a few more. The good news is, the number of empty storefronts is going down.”

Budd said no matter what the event was in town last year, and whether it was held virtually or in person, the goal was to drive new and old residents to the downtown area.

“We had a very abbreviated sidewalk sale in August last year when it's typically in July,” she said. “We spread it over two days. We had a quarter of the vendors we usually have but focused on the New Canaan brick and mortar stores and allowed them to do that.”

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