A new initiative designed to bring more people to uptown Saint John appears to be catching on.
Uptown Saint John has partnered with the city to offer one hour of free on-street parking daily to HotSpot Parking users.
According to the business improvement association, about 130 new HotSpot accounts took advantage of this initiative in the first 10 days.
“That number does not include the many users already using HotSpot,” the association said in a news release.
Executive director Nancy Tissington previously said they wanted to find a way to help businesses get through the difficult months after the holidays.
“There has been quite a struggle here, and January, February, March is typically a hard time of the year,” Tissington told Saint John council on Jan. 25.
Tissington said this year is even more difficult than usual due to the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The program will run until the end of March, or until the $35,000 in funding from the city runs out, whichever comes first.
It will only take place when the Saint John health region is in the orange or yellow level of pandemic recovery.
