Ottawa has recognized one of its quiet but consistent community builders — Andrea Steenbakkers, the driving force behind the Barrhaven Business Improvement Area (BIA), has received a lifetime achievement award celebrating her decades of work supporting local businesses and strengthening suburban commercial corridors.
From the Ground Up
When the Barrhaven BIA launched in 2006, it made history as Ottawa's first suburban BIA — a concept that had previously been confined to the city's urban core. Steenbakkers was there from day one, helping to establish the organization and define what a suburban BIA could look like in a rapidly growing community like Barrhaven.
At the time, the idea of a suburban business improvement area was far from a given. BIAs had long been associated with dense downtown districts — think the ByWard Market or Bank Street — where foot traffic and tight commercial strips made collective investment an obvious fit. Applying that model to a sprawling suburb took vision, persistence, and a genuine belief that community identity matters even when your neighbours are a parking lot apart.
What BIAs Actually Do
For anyone who hasn't followed Ottawa's business scene closely, BIAs are levy-funded organizations that represent commercial property owners and tenants in a defined area. They handle everything from streetscaping and holiday lighting to marketing campaigns, event programming, and advocacy with City Hall.
In Barrhaven's case, the BIA has played a key role in giving the neighbourhood's commercial strips a cohesive identity — no small feat in a community that has grown from a mid-sized suburb into one of Ottawa's largest and most populous areas. Today Barrhaven is home to tens of thousands of residents and a diverse retail and service economy that stretches from Chapman Mills to Strandherd Drive.
Why the Recognition Matters
Lifetime achievement awards in business circles can sometimes feel like routine backslapping. This one feels different. Steenbakkers represents a generation of Ottawa civic workers who built institutions that residents now take for granted — the seasonal events, the coordinated beautification, the voice at the table when city planners come knocking.
Her tenure also spans a remarkable period of change for Barrhaven: the expansion of the Barrhaven Town Centre, ongoing transit debates, the growth of the community's francophone population, and the pressures that come with rapid residential development pushing into commercial planning priorities.
A Model for Ottawa's Suburbs
Barrhaven's BIA didn't stay a one-off experiment. Ottawa now has multiple suburban BIAs, and the model Steenbakkers helped prove out has influenced how the city thinks about commercial area management outside the Greenbelt. That's a legacy worth marking.
As Ottawa continues to grow outward — with Barrhaven, Kanata, Orléans, and other suburban communities adding residents year over year — the work of organizations like the Barrhaven BIA becomes more important, not less. Keeping local commercial areas vibrant, organized, and connected to their communities is exactly the kind of unglamorous infrastructure that makes a city liveable.
Congratulations to Andrea Steenbakkers on a well-earned honour.
Source: Ottawa Business Journal
