Friday, June 3, 2016

Taking Stock: North Coast Business Scene -- May 2016

As we prepare to head into the summer months, the city's business sector is facing some pending changes, as a few familiar stores and services look to close, or change hands. While other new ventures take that tentative steps towards the challenges that small business can provide for, with percolating tales of new introductions to the local business scene.

Over the last thirty days, we discovered a growing number of commercial related stories to review, some of them featuring progress for the city's business ambitions, others indicating that there are still some ares where local commerce is finding some struggles.

Some of our observations on the Commercial scene in the City for May can be found below:

May

One of our most popular items for the month was our look at the introduction of the long time fixture from Prince Rupert's dining scene go up on the real estate market, with Third Avenue's Galaxy Gardens Restaurant now listed with Remax Realty.

The Wheelhouse Brewery, Prince Rupert's home for Craft Beer has a new decoration (and some serious bragging rights) for their location in the Atlin Terminal area, as the owners of the popular local beverage house returned from a National competition that took place in Vancouver with a Bronze medal for their Smokehouse Porter.

While it wasn't news from May, the shift of the city's sidewalk replacement program finally opened up the storefronts for a portion of Third Avenue West, something which revealed that the popular Happy Little Clouds Art Studio had ceased operations earlier this year.

Residents of the North Coast and potential visitors to the region can now take advantage of three flights during the week in and out of YPR, as Air Canada launched its late afternoon service to the region last month.

May delivered the news that the city owned Communication company CityWest will be finding some enhanced competition in the Terrace area over the summer, with Telus introducing a new High speed Internet option for residents of the Terrace/Thorhnill area.

For those looking for even more diverse options for Prince Rupert's growing food scene, May provided a glimpse of a new taste to come this fall with word that a restaurant featuring Thai cuisine will open up in the Rupert Square Mall later this fall.

Northern Savings the Prince Rupert based Financial Services institution hosted its Annual General Meeting in May, delivering is Annual report to the public which outlined some of the past challenges that the institution faced and highlighted its plans for the future.

May also provided notice to Prince Rupert that The Electrician is no more, with the long time electrical service company changing its name to Pacific Northwest Electric and Controls.

The City's Chamber of Commerce began to roll out some of the initiatives that its newly installed executive plan to work on, with the release of some details on a range of committees that have been created for 2016-17.

Some big changes are in store for the Cow Bay area after the Port of Prince Rupert acquired property near the Atlin Terminal from the City of Prince Rupert, the land purchase will offer up some ambitious development plans for the popular gathering space set to move forward.

The City's annual tax bill also provided an interesting note for those tracking developments with the city's commercial and industrial sectors, with a sneak peek towards the upcoming Annual Report noting that the City had issued 1,085 Business licences in 2015, though residents might wonder where they've all located when one walks along Third and Second Avenues, which still feature a large volume of unoccupied retail space.

You will be able to find the archive for Taking Stock as a part of our larger page dedicated to the commercial sector of the North Coast found here.

We imagine we probably have missed a few here or there, so if you know of a business having opened, or seen the Going out of business sign appear somewhere in the area, drop us a line at our email account of northcoastreviewpr@yahoo.ca

Or send us a short message through our twitter feed of @CharlesHays

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