Commercial development on a major highway decimates a smaller city's downtown core. Consequently, Whitehorse should proceed with caution if the city is to avoid the fate of Medicine Hat, Alta.

That's the opinion of Medicine Hat councillor Cathy Smith. She believes that permitting hotels, chains and big box stores on her city's portion of the Trans-Canada Highway decimated Medicine Hat's downtown area.

'I would absolutely agree with (Whitehorse city councillor Doug Graham's) statements,' Smith said in an interview with the Star Tuesday.

'Whitehorse should be wary of this kind of development,' she added.

At Monday night's city council meeting, Graham cautioned council over amending the city's Official Community Plan (OCP) to allow for the development of an 80-room hotel across the Alaska Highway from the city's airport.

Graham used Medicine Hat as an example of highway development gone wrong.

Smith said by permitting major development on the Trans-Canada, small, locally-owned businesses in her city were forced out of business.

'In your downtown, most of your stores are Mom and Pop stores; they're the ones that are affected,' Smith said.

Her city developed a downtown revitalization plan as a result of highway development, she added.

As part of the plan, the city, along with the Alberta and federal governments, had promoted and built a $30-million arts and heritage facility to try to get businesses to return to the city's downtown core.

She said even with the new $30-million centre, city officials were having trouble encouraging large businesses to invest downtown.

'We can't even get a chain hotel to locate itself in the downtown,' she said.

'Good luck trying to get these things back in the downtown core. That's what happens when you allow this kind of development,' Smith said.

She also said members of her council had received cautionary correspondence from the Alberta government stating that their massive highway development was actually slowing down the transport of goods along the Trans-Canada.

'What it really did was slow down commerce,' she said.

Currently, Medicine Hat has several large chain hotels, a Wal-Mart, Real Canadian Superstore, a shopping mall and a Staples and a Superstore located in the area surrounding the highway.

The city's downtown core now has a high rate of vacant commerical properties in the downtown area.