Team Canada pride kicked off on Friday as fans headed to the Granville Street Pedestrian Zone to watch Canada’s first match against Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The five-block stretch of Granville Street — Georgia Street to Davie Street — will be closed to cars and buses until July 19.
“We are super stoked, we are super excited to be here,” Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim said on Friday morning.
“We’ve been talking about this for three and a half years now. And look, I think Vancouverites and basically the world, they’re going to wake up, they’re starting to wake up and they’re starting to feel the excitement in the city of Vancouver.”
The pedestrian zone includes additional seating, sanitation services and many things for fans to see and do.
Sim said they hope that businesses along the Granville Strip will benefit from more people coming to the area, watching the games and having a drink or a bite to eat.
“It’s so good to see that so many businesses that have been struggling — let’s call it what it is, they’ve been struggling with a whole bunch of issues down here — they’re starting to reap the benefits of their perseverance,” Sim added.
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In April, Downtown Van released its 2026 State of Downtown report, stating that while Granville Street’s vacancy rate dropped to 24.9 per cent in January after hitting 29.4 per cent in 2025, it’s still higher than average and about one in four storefronts remain empty.
The Business Improvement Association (BIA) data also showed that on average, 50 per cent of all service calls for its Downtown Vancouver Community Safety Team occurred on Granville Street.
Calls increased across every category last year, with open drug use up 33 per cent and welfare checks rising by 26 per cent.
Vancouver police said up to 50 extra officers could be assigned to the city’s entertainment district on match days and on Friday and Saturday nights.
Sim said that this fan zone experience will inform the city and community groups moving forward.
“In council and at the City of Vancouver, we are looking at this as a test case,” he said.
“We are taking the data and all the learnings we get from the next 40 days and we are going to incorporate it into the next chapter that will be the Granville Entertainment District.
“We can see what the future holds and it looks pretty amazing and that’s what we are going to be pushing for going forward.”
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