Tim Horton's: Revitalizing St. John's

City Hall has been working closely with the multi-million dollar coffee franchise, Tim Horton's, to improve the vitality of the province's capital. The St. John's-Tim Horton's Revitalization Strategy was originally conceived back in 2007 to transform the old, archaic city into a lively, attractive modern metropolis. You may already notice thousands of colourful coffee-cup-shaped decorations adorn the city's sidewalks and green spaces, enriching the urban experience for all.

"The ornamentation process wasn't easy", says project coordinator Buck Tansman, "We had several stages of research and development." The first were design and test phases. Several seasonal colour patterns were created and developers coated the ornaments in plastic to ensure their durability. Once the product was approved, a specially-appointed task force charted pedestrian use and mapped possible locations to place the decorations.




Next, municipal workers carefully placed the ornaments in approved locations, crushing them for visual effect. Most recently the crew had in place their bright red/yellow winter palette in to juxtapose the white snow. Workers were silent when asked about the unveiling of the next colour scheme.




The entire ornamentation strategy is running at about half the projected cost of $2.5 million annually. Officials are delighted with the results so far. "City council was hoping to bring the same coherence and unity we see with the Tim Horton's-style schemes of Toronto and Halifax," says Tansman. "I feel we have now achieved that here."




The opinions presented are those of the author and not of Tim Horton's or the City of St. John's (I hope). All names are fictional.