The executive director of the Steinbach Chamber of Commerce says there has been quite an upturn in business development activity this year, especially in the downtown area. Linda Peters says quite a few entrepreneurs have opened new businesses, some of them being operations that started out as home-based businesses. She notes the decision by Steinbach Credit Union a couple of years ago to build its new office downtown has been a big factor in keeping the downtown a desirable area.

"The Steinbach downtown has remained very vibrant and this is, not in small part, due to the fact that Steinbach Credit Union decided to remain there. In order to keep an area of any community vibrant, you always need to have lots of traffic. And so to have a large business like Steinbach Credit Union downtown ensures that you have lots of traffic, lots of people coming into that area during the day and then they're quickly making a stop at another location."

Peters says there are still business vacancies downtown but things are changing.

"There is still empty space for sure but I would say that we've seen quite a few fill up in the last few months and, from what I'm hearing, there's more coming for next year."