Fridays on Front is giving community members a chance to rediscover Front Street.
The Downtown New Westminster Business Improvement Association will host Fridays on Front every Friday from July 7 to Aug. 25 in the 600 block of Front Street. The night market aims to create a family-friendly vibe on the soon-to-be-finished Front Street mews.
“I feel like it’s going to be a unique space,” said Kendra Johnston, executive director of the BIA. “I am excited to see how some of the newer modern elements on the street contrast to the heritage buildings. I think it’s going to be really beautiful.”
Each week, some of the food trucks taking part in this summer’s Columbia StrEAT Food Truck Fest will be on hand to serve up dinner. The BIA has also teamed up with Steel & Oak Brewing Co. to fully license Front Street, so attendees will be able to enjoy an S&O beer or a glass of wine from the Vagabond Event Bar Company, Vancouver’s first bar truck, and stroll along the street.
“The New Westminster Arts Council is booking some really cool local entertainment for us each week,” Johnston said. “We are working with New West Craft and New West Farmers to put together the night market and have really interesting vendors – vendors they may not have at their other events.”
The night market, which will run from 5 to 8 p.m. on Fridays, is open to people of all ages.
“It’s somewhere where parents can take their kids after work and have an earlier night, or people can come down and grab a beer, enjoy some of the music and the night market and then head off to a downtown pub or restaurant to carry on with their Friday night,” Johnston said. “It’s sort of the pre-party.”
While attending Fridays on Front, the Downtown New Westminster Business Improvement Association invites folks to check out some of the businesses on Front Street.
“We are pretty excited about it. The original impetus was trying to find a way to celebrate Front Street, especially after all of the construction,” Johnston said. “Looking at the plans for the new Front Street mews, understanding what the esthetic might be, we came up with the idea of a small weekly night market to try and entice people to go down and spend a little bit of time there again.”
The City of New Westminster provided the BIA with a grant to offer Fridays on Front and is partnering with the BIA on the July 7 launch, which will double as the grand reopening of Front Street.
“I think this is a good way for us to test Front Street as a venue for events. If it works, we are hoping other groups, other businesses, other event producers might use Front Street to create their own events in the future,” said Johnston, noting construction is still underway on Front Street. “The challenge is none of us knows exactly what it’s going to look like. We are ready to be flexible and to change things on the fly and to tweak things from week to week.”
