Established in 1997, CleanMark recently marked its 25-year anniversary of service excellence. This milestone stands as a testament to the enduring dedication to its values, demonstrated day in and day out.

Today, following decades of sustained organic growth, CleanMark deploys a workforce of more than 2,000 employees and certified service providers. Its client list spans North America, encompassing a diverse range of sectors, territories, and client requirements—from coast-to-coast retail chains to single site condominium owners.

Built on great people, operational excellence, and a values-based approach, CleanMark’s success is driven by the pursuit of innovative solutions that deliver the highest level of commercial cleaning and workplace compliance. In practice, that can be evidenced through the development of proprietary technology to deliver real-time service reporting, the implementation of up-to-date compliant cleaning legislation, and an ongoing commitment to embedding sustainable working practices that minimizes each client’s environmental impact.

While CleanMark can rightly take pride in its expanding national network, there is also a deep understanding that local knowledge is key to delivering facility management excellence. Creating a national network of local expertise means that managers live and work in the areas they oversee, communities are invested in, employment opportunities are created, and local suppliers are supported.

“We have always attempted to have a positive effect on the communities we work in,” says CleanMark’s Principal, Angela Vavitsas. “We refer to our own workforce as the CleanMark community. It is part of our DNA and it gives me immense pleasure to know that our commitment to identifying and nurturing outstanding local talent continues to fuel our growth as an organization and as individuals.”

And it makes perfect business sense. If you have a skilled, loyal, and motivated workforce who are offered career development opportunities and feel a sense of ownership because they are employed and valued in their community, that is a strong foundation on which to build a service-focused business. Support those employees with the technology and tools to nurture a high-touch, fully accountable relationship that the client can rely on, and you have the perfect recipe for success. It is not unusual for CleanMark staff to work at the same site for years—in some instances, decades. That builds trust and equally importantly, a consistent clean which enables the client to focus on their core business activities.

Until recently, CleanMark’s growth had been exclusively organic, but earlier this year, the company was approached by Newton Cleaning & Maintenance Services. Owners and operators of Newton since 2008, the Newton family had built a successful business that specialized in servicing condominium properties in Port Hope, Peterborough, and Cobourg. It was a conversation that led CleanMark to expand its growth strategy, pivot, and embark on something new.

Vavitsas expressed her enthusiasm, stating, “We’re delighted with the Newton acquisition and although it is early days, we look forward to combining our expertise and resources to create new and exciting facility management opportunities for our businesses across the region. Given that CleanMark is an organization traditionally built on organic growth, we feel this acquisition stands as a testament to the high regard in which we hold the Newton team.”

Vavitsas elaborates, “Lastly, and importantly, CleanMark’s and Newton’s values are aligned, anchoring this partnership in a set of shared values that we believe is critical for ongoing success. We are extremely proud to align ourselves with a company that shares our vision and commitment to service excellence.”

Synergy plays a key role in ensuring a smooth acquisition, allowing for a seamless transition that diminishes the uncertainty that all too often hinders two companies coming together. CleanMark worked hard to ensure existing staff, roles, and client service were uninterrupted and that Newton employees were communicated with transparently and welcomed into the CleanMark community.

In the future, CleanMark plans to increase the service offering by introducing additional specialist services, like condominium superintendents, which have already been successfully implemented in other aspects of the business. The approach here prioritizes evolution over revolution, aiming to preserve the positive attributes that initially made Newton such an appealing acquisition. The focus is on enhancing capabilities without introducing unnecessary confusion.

The recent addition of new accounts in recent weeks shows the potential of Newton’s enhanced capabilities—made possible through this new venture—and sets the stage for a thriving partnership that is primed to achieve exceptional outcomes and surpass customer expectations in the years ahead. It also bodes well for future acquisitions.

Since CleanMark’s inception, it has maintained a focus on bringing its team members through the ranks and rewarding loyalty. This has resulted in outstanding staff retention rates, with an impressive 58 percent of supervisors being promoted from within.

“We’re very passionate,” says Vavitsas. “We care about our business, and we care about our clients, and we want to make sure the brand standard is delivered. We share that goal with the Newton team and that’s why this is a strategic step forward in our mission to provide top-tier commercial cleaning and facility maintenance solutions.”

Thrilled with the acquisition, CleanMark is looking for further businesses to help diversify its portfolio and is in discussions with another cleaning company based in the U.S. Midwest. With a significant footprint across Canada and most of the United States, CleanMark is looking to build density around city centres.

Believing that leadership takes many forms, CleanMark created the *BeBrilliant program a few years ago. Company leaders are valued for being dedicated, positive, and inspiring others, and these employees are acknowledged through the *BeBrilliant Awards Portal, which recognize and reward individuals and teams who go above and beyond for their clients or colleagues. For CleanMark, it is a way of giving something back. Team members can redeem rewards for gift cards or merchandise.

“Our values are very much built into everything we do,” says Vavitsas. “Instead of taking a top-down approach, if employees are working together and help someone out by staying longer or collaborating on a problem, they can reward each other.”

This commitment to its team has played a key role in the company achieving year-on-year double-digit growth since its inception.

Known for consistent, dependable service, CleanMark has carefully formulated auditing protocols in place which are highly customizable for every client. Developed in-house, customers can tailor the information they wish to see and its frequency.

“What we’ve found with the new sectors is that our technology is being very well received because of the control it affords each client,” Vavitsas explains. “Daily audits are conducted through GPS, and the superintendent or project manager receives a copy of all the readings. A lot of things we have built are adaptable and customizable to each building.”

Everything is monitored and tracked, and CleanMark has measurable Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to ensure accountability. “Even though we are a distributed labour source over five or six time zones across North America, we can see what is going on at any point during the day with the technology that we use,” says Vavitsas.

Building on over 25 years of success, CleanMark looks forward to further growth and diversifying its portfolio, with condominiums identified as a significant growth opportunity across all geographies.

The post Cleaning North America<p class="company">CleanMark Group</p> appeared first on Business In Focus Magazine.

This change in tourism patterns goes back to 2014, according to Joanne Bérubé-Gagné, Executive Director of the Edmundston Madawaska Tourism Office, who has held this office since 2003.

“That was when we questioned why we were only promoting two summer months when we were already at 90 percent capacity for them. So we switched our thinking and started marketing the other ten months and considered how to become a year-round destination,” she explains.

Stop and stay awhile
“We wanted to be a lot more than a place where people stopped en route to the rest of Atlantic Canada, so we started developing culinary products which needed to be on the menu 12 months of the year and not just in the summer, because otherwise the producers couldn’t survive.”

The year of 2014 was indeed a turning point for tourism. Not only did the marketing strategy change, but the region also proved it could successfully stage large events when it hosted the Acadian World Congress for the first time. This event, held every five years in different locations, brought more than 50,000 people to the region over two weeks, and produced a substantial economic spin-off.

Three years later, in 2017, the new arena opened. Located on the Edmundston campus of l’Université de Moncton, the Centre Jean-Daigle amphitheatre was designed to host major cultural, sporting, and community events. It features an NHL-size rink with 2,400 seats, and when configured for a show, has seating for 3,700. In addition, the atrium with a balcony overlooking the city can accommodate up to 1,000 at an event.

The centre is home to the Edmundston Blizzard Junior A Hockey team which plays in the Maritime Junior Hockey League. It also hosts interprovincial hockey tournaments, bringing in visitors and selling out games. The arena, along with Mont Farlagne’s ski hill, sets a popular stage for sports tourism.

The years between 2014 and 2019 were exceptionally good ones, says Bérubé-Gagné, with each year better than the one before. However, in March 2020, the pandemic lockdowns and severe travel restrictions (lasting into 2021) hurt businesses everywhere, including tourism in Edmundston Madawaska.

All together now
But not for long. Surprisingly positive things came out of the pandemic, according to Bérubé-Gagné. “What the pandemic did for us was to bring people closer together and force us to ask each other how we could partner to create this new product. ‘What is missing in the region and how can we create it together?’ There was a lot of collaborating to develop new businesses and new offerings,” she says.

“We’d been working on culinary tourism for 10 years, trying to get local products out front, and I think the pandemic helped us. We were isolated and people started working together, watching out for each other, and that created a new dynamic on the economic side. We were saying, ‘If there’s something we don’t have, why don’t we create it and start a small business, and we can partner with this one or that one.’ We saw a lot of that and it created a new synergy among entrepreneurs.”

Now there are two microbreweries whose products use local ingredients. Les Brasseurs du Petit-Sault, with labels that celebrate local history and culture, offers tastings for 14 products, including six unique seasonal beers infused with locally produced fruit. Then there’s Microbrasserie Ateepic, whose products are on the menu at the Edmundston Fraser Golf Club.

A local winery, meanwhile, has partnered with a local haskap berry producer to make a fruit wine. Another food production business is mixing haskap with maple to produce a syrup for coffee toppings, while a local pizza restaurant has partnered with a new cheese factory.

Putting nature on the list
Tourism industry entrepreneurs are also partnering with the natural beauty of the Madawaska region to create new product offerings. Two companies, Ekö Nature Glamping at Lac Baker and Quisibis Domes at Riviére-Verte, offer visitors the ultimate glamping experience in luxurious geodesic domes, the roofs of which feature windows to allow for stargazing. Lac Baker, good for swimming, has a new walking trail that links it to Edmundston, while canoes and kayaks can be rented at Riviére-Verte.

Mont Farlagne, with elevations between 150 and 338 metres, just minutes from downtown Edmundston, has long been a popular alpine ski and snowboarding hill, but now has morphed into a four-season outdoor centre, with 60 kilometres of mountain biking trails, outdoor events, and a lodge with live music, snack bar, and restaurant.

Meanwhile, the Grey Rock Power Centre, located on the Madawaska Maliseet First Nation, which includes the Grey Rock Casino with over 250 slots and hybrid tables, a hotel and conference centre, several restaurants, and retail outlets, has also become home to Grey Rock Adventures. Its offerings include snowmobile, ATV, and Side by Side guided tour packages for groups with different experience levels. With the commercial hub now well established and profitable, Bérubé-Gagné believes the next step for the centre, already an important tourism partner, will be to develop a First Nations culture and heritage project in the next few years.

Another natural attraction is the New Brunswick Botanical Garden, a 7-hectare garden located next door to the Provincial Park with over 80,000 plants arranged in thematic gardens with sculptures, a café, and an herbal workshop. It’s located next to the Madawaska River in the Saint-Jacques neighbourhood and is the largest arboretum east of Montreal.

The garden officially closes at the end of September, but by extending the season through festivals in October and November, such as the Grande Grouille, when thousands of illuminated pumpkins light up the gardens at night while musicians perform, and Jardin Emballé, a Christmas market with more than 50 exhibitors showcasing local products, artwork and fine crafts, thousands of visitors are drawn in.

A future so bright
Speaking of festivals, the events committee is focused on having something every weekend and has developed a new strategy to attract national organizations to the area for major events.

“We participated in the Sport Congress in Vancouver earlier this year and we’ve started looking into some big events. In the next year or so, our name could be on bids or proposals to attract some of those activities.” Bérubé-Gagné also plans to revive her attendance at travel shows in Boston, Montreal, Toronto, and Halifax—something she’d always done pre-pandemic—and connect with tour bus operators.

In terms of future growth, she sees definite advantages to maintaining membership in the Tourism Industry Association of Canada (TIAC), “because it keeps us informed about what’s going on in Ottawa. They worked hard during COVID to get information out, and they don’t forget about the smaller places.”

Edmundston Madawaska is “back at full speed,” she says. “We’ve grown our numbers and our hotels have higher occupancy than we had in 2019. Our industry not only survived, but encompassed bigger growth than all the other industries put together, and we are starting to see a return on our investments. We’ve done that by continuing to develop the tourism product that began during the pandemic when a new wave of entrepreneurs started partnering and creating some really good products to offer visitors.”

Most of the tourism development, she notes, has not been driven by government subsidies, but instead was achieved by the private sector. It’s people from New Brunswick who are investing in their region, people who are committed and determined to make it work, with the larger community in full support.

The post Developing a Year-Round Destination<p class="company">Edmundston Madawaska Tourism Office</p> appeared first on Business In Focus Magazine.

Established in December 2022, Invest Nova Scotia is the provincial government’s new business-development agency. This government agency is working to ensure more businesses and entrepreneurs get the value of what Invest Nova Scotia offers, and delivers on government priorities to help grow Nova Scotia’s economy. Invest Nova Scotia strives to help businesses of all sizes expand and prosper while advancing a more creative, resilient, sustainable, and competitive economy.

“We’re relatively new, and in the past our mandate was limited. It was on export only or start-ups, and generally start-ups that have a deep-tech, innovative product which needs a big international market to be successful,” says President and CEO, Peter MacAskill. “With Invest Nova Scotia, we’ve got a broader mandate, but really, it’s about bringing value to more companies around the province.”

A consolidation of former government Crown corporations Nova Scotia Business Inc. and Innovacorp, Invest Nova Scotia’s support happens through a number of initiatives, including incubating start-ups, providing access to trade opportunities, self-directed training in HR, inclusivity training, and capacity building.

“We’re also responsible for helping companies set up and invest here in Nova Scotia,” MacAskill says. “And we work in every nook of the province to help provide a range of investment and export programs.”

With 14 offices around the province, between its regional business development team, its various incubation spaces, and desk space hubs, the organization’s resources are meant to address opportunities and challenges for businesses, now and on the horizon.

Start-up companies are a key focus area for the organization, supporting them through venture capital, incubation facilities, expert advice, and other acceleration initiatives.

“Companies come in, often in their ideation stage, and work with us on what they’re thinking about and how they’re going to go about tackling problems,” MacAskill says. “Good businesses, they’re solving problems by providing innovative solutions.”

To further help assist in this arena, the Productivity and Innovation Voucher Program (PIVP) provides businesses (whether an incubation client or otherwise) with vouchers for research. This happens through one of the province’s post-secondary education institutions, either at one of the universities or Nova Scotia Community College.

“It’s about proof of concept,” says MacAskill. “The company’s got an idea or base research to help solve a problem, and the researcher helps them define that, prove it, or even disprove it. Sometimes when you disprove, that has value as well, because you realize you must move on to something else. It’s about using capital efficiently and achieving the best solution in the best way possible.”

Another of the organization’s programs, the Export Development Program (EDP), provides financial incentives to offset the cost of projects and overcome barriers to export growth. Tony’s Meats, located in Antigonish, Nova Scotia, is a good example.

Established in 1963 as a specialized meat processor, Tony’s Meats produces a wide range of raw and ready-to-eat products for the retail and foodservice markets across Canada. Back in 2022, the company was looking to expand sales and distribute a new line of dried meat snacks into the United States. The company showcased and tested three new snacks at a tradeshow in Chicago, through the funding of their EDP. This new product was received positively, with several large retailers and distributors in the United States and other countries, including Puerto Rico, Australia, and Germany, expressing an interest in their dried meat snacks.

Recently, Tony’s Meats has been undertaking upgrades to its production equipment and storage facility via a $937,725 capital investment to support growth of international exports, specifically in the ready-to-eat snack meat category, and additional food manufacturing opportunities with halal meat.

There, too, Invest Nova Scotia has something to offer, knowing that capital improvements are vital for businesses, but not easy. The agency has the Innovation Rebate Program (IRP), which is a capital rebate that helps a company with a productivity, sustainability, or capacity-building project for a manufacturing environment with an approved rebate of up to 25 percent against eligible project costs. The company’s total project costs must be between $350,000 and $15 million.

“Oftentimes, the IRP is for sustainability improvements,” MacAskill explains. “However, the program also supports companies as they innovate, drive productivity, and adopt cleaner approaches to growth across Nova Scotia.”

Invest Nova Scotia has also recently been able to help companies which support other companies through the IRP program by fulfilling supply chain requirements. For instance, Maritime Labels invested in new machinery which enabled other Nova Scotia businesses to have a secure, local supplier of those labels. In addition, Halifax Folding Cartons Limited has undertaken a $1,880,000 capital investment at its facility in Windsor, Hants County, to invest in new printing technology. The new, more automated equipment helps improve the speed, accuracy, and efficiency of this company’s operations.

The province of Nova Scotia is currently leading the country in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reduction targets, which means that sustainability remains a big focus at Invest Nova Scotia. Aiming to reduce its GHG emissions by at least 53 percent below 2005 levels by 2030, and to reach net zero targets by 2050, Nova Scotia presently has the most ambitious GHG reduction targets in the country.

“People are taking these sustainability targets seriously,” MacAskill says. “Companies will tell us they’re aiming to reduce GHGs or limit their waste by 30 or 50 percent. It can be as simple as a new, more efficient machine in a box cutting process. For example, in the past, six cuts may have been required, and now, a new machine can do the same task in three cuts and produce a lot less waste.”

The companies Invest Nova Scotia has helped are varied and numerous, and MacAskill takes great pride in each of them. One success story is CarbonCure Technologies, a Canadian cleantech company which enables concrete producers to reduce their carbon footprint. The company was awarded the 2020 North American Cleantech Company of the Year by Cleantech Group. More recently, the company received an investment from an outside venture capital firm of $80 million US. Invest Nova Scotia provided funds for CarbonCure through its venture capital incentive, helping the firm take part in trade missions through its export development programming.

When Invest Nova Scotia started working with Parlee Manufacturing, located near Liverpool, Nova Scotia, the company initially sold adventurer backpacks. They have since transitioned into what they are now known for: rugged bags used by local emergency services providers for carrying ambulance gear and supplies. Today, Parlee Manufacturing is a top supplier of medical equipment packs and bags for several provincial EMS organizations, and the list is growing across the country.

“Parlee has engaged with us on a program called Trade Market Intelligence, or TMI. TMI is a customized secondary market intelligence service available to Nova Scotia exporters which enables them to evaluate market opportunities,” says MacAskill. “Our team works diligently with companies such as Parlee to create customized intelligence reports and help prepare them for their market-entry strategy.”

Invest Nova Scotia also partners with small businesses to help improve their operations. For example, Groovy Goat, a small craft soap company in Ingonish, Cape Breton Island, recently worked with Invest Nova Scotia on a productivity improvement initiative to help automate processes and make them more efficient.

As a result of this project, Groovy Goat expects its daily production totals will increase from 700 bars per day to 1,750 bars per day. The new fridges and freezers will also result in improved energy efficiencies, and new factory-made molds will reduce waste.

Along with helping businesses directly, Invest Nova Scotia also provides access to a host of self-directed training courses, an essential component for many fledgling businesses still trying to learn everything they can to be as successful as possible.

“Businesses, owners, and managers are incredibly busy; you’ve often got many balls in the air. You’re the HR department one second, you’re the finance department the next second, and head of sales an hour later,” MacAskill says. “There are businesses of all shapes and sizes, and they often know what they need in terms of assistance, but they don’t know how to access it.”

To help alleviate that stress, Invest Nova Scotia offers different types of training workshops and services for clients, including a self-directed module with on-demand courses found on its website. Developed with a local consultant, there are various courses offered such as: ‘Scaling Your Value’; ‘Marketing that Matters’; ‘Managing Sales with Purpose’; and ‘Boss’s Guide to HR’. These courses help business owners with items they need to be aware of, from codes and regulations to the importance of training and efficiency.

“They cover the various components of what a company requires within the range of a business cycle. The range and flexibility of these courses are ideal for those who may have no prior business experience, or those who simply need to brush up on their business knowledge and skills,” says MacAskill.

“Partners are extremely important in the business of economic development,” he adds. “And while Invest Nova Scotia has partners around the province, there are still many more partners it needs to bring in, including other government departments. For instance, when dealing with a business that wants to complete a new development, the Department of Environment may need to help clarify the relevant regulations. We try to make it as easy as possible, with a ‘no wrong door, no wrong window’ approach.”

Looking more broadly beyond any one point in time, Invest Nova Scotia’s programs, advice, and other resources can form a continuum of client services. In other words, the government agency is set up to match a company’s needs along the company’s path of growth.

Graphite Innovation & Technologies (GIT) is a developer of graphene-based and eco-friendly marine coatings. The company boosts hull and propeller efficiency and delivers significant fuel savings and GHG-emission reductions. GIT’s products are notable as they do not leach microplastics or toxins into the ocean, and even absorb underwater noise to reduce stress on marine life.

GIT leases two industrial bays and office space in ‘The Bays’ at Invest Nova Scotia. ‘The Bays’ are where some of the province’s best technology entrepreneurs lease space to take advantage of world-class facilities.

GIT has used many of the tools and resources at Invest Nova Scotia, such as the Productivity and Innovation Voucher Program to access post-secondary research and resources. GIT also used the Export Growth Program and conducted market research, and the company created marketing and awareness assets with help from Invest Nova Scotia’s Digital Marketing Asset Development Program. This year, GIT’s trajectory has resulted in $10 million in ‘Series A’ financing (with Invest Nova Scotia having invested $2.5 million in this round) to scale-up and help the shipping industry transition toward net zero emissions.

Businesses such as GIT, and many others, have expressed time and again just how much they depend on Invest Nova Scotia for their programs and services. With an eye toward a future of opportunities, from business launches and raising capital to incubation and acceleration, export development, and investor attraction, Invest Nova Scotia will continue to strive in encouraging and supporting businesses across Nova Scotia.

The post Supporting Success: Investing in Tomorrow’s Businesses Today<p class="company">Invest Nova Scotia</p> appeared first on Business In Focus Magazine.

The Association, through an agreement with the Nova Scotia Real Estate Commission, provides all real estate licensing courses in the province.

NSAR got its start through an amalgamation of smaller local real estate boards. Real estate boards from across the province, founded in the 1950s, combined in 2000 to form NSAR. This merger centralized the operations of the smaller boards, and cut down on expenses for members.

NSAR’s current President, Matthew Dauphinee, has been a member of the Association for more than 12 years. Dauphinee has sat on NSAR’s board for the past four years and says that the Association tries to cast a wide net with the services it provides.

As a member-based association, NSAR serves its REALTOR® members and provides training, technology tools, and support to them. The Association also advocates on issues affecting housing attainability and home ownership in Nova Scotia. Chief Executive Officer, Roger Boutilier, adds that the Association is the voice of real estate in Nova Scotia, working to ensure every Nova Scotian has a place to call home.

NSAR operates the Multiple Listing Service® (MLS®), an electronic database of homes for sale and the details of those properties. Only members of NSAR have access to the MLS® System. The provincial MLS® data feeds to Realtor.ca, the number one real estate website in Canada, operated by the Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA).

NSAR is a leader in offering innovative tools that make the homebuying and selling process more convenient for buyers and sellers. Most recently, NSAR worked with Realtor.ca to enhance the user experience in Nova Scotia by adding new information to listings in the province.

“We were the first MLS® to show conditional sales and sold listings on Realtor.ca,” Dauphinee says. NSAR is continuing to enhance the Realtor.ca user experience with industry-leading accessibility search functions launching in 2024.

Technology and industry leadership are two things NSAR places a high priority on. Boutilier lists the organization’s five strategic goals as: making home ownership more attainable; elevating public perception of the value of realtors; creating and promoting a higher level of professional standards; staying at the forefront of technologies impacting members and the industry; and actively engaging its membership in decision-making through diversity, equity, inclusion, and anti-racism initiatives.

NSAR prides itself on its connection to the community and other organizations that have housing attainability and provincial prosperity in their mandate. This includes keeping communication open with the Nova Scotia Real Estate Commission (NSREC) which is the regulator of the real estate industry in Nova Scotia. NSREC contracts with NSAR to provide real estate licensing and continuing education courses.

NSAR works with organizations throughout the province such as the Halifax Partnership, the Cape Breton Partnership, various Chambers of Commerce, all levels of government, and many other stakeholders to grow economic prosperity for the province and make home ownership more attainable.

“We are the primary resource advocating for attainable homeownership on behalf of our members, their clients, and the public,” says Dauphinee.

Over the last year, NSAR has advocated on behalf of its members and out-of-province owners against the provincial government’s attempt to implement a two percent tax increase on deed transfers for owners who don’t live in Nova Scotia. This tax affected many people in Nova Scotia that have been forced to leave the province to find work opportunities but who also still had property remaining behind. This tax would have also been burdensome on people with generational or inherited property. The tax had no meaningful impact on housing attainability and would punish current homeowners, so the Association advocated against it.

The Association has also helped create several programs to benefit local homeowners. It created the Nova Scotia Down Payment Assistance Program (DPAP) in 2017. The program, which was adopted by the province, provides a 10-year, interest-free down payment loan to help first-time home buyers purchase property in the province. The program has helped over 860 families to date. NSAR has further worked directly with the provincial government to change the definition of a first-time home buyer, to align it with federal definitions so that local buyers can take advantage of all programs available to them.

NSAR was an active participant in the Affordable Housing Commission (AHC) and created a report to advocate for solutions to improve housing across the spectrum. A new report from NSAR is due in 2024 to update what has been done and what needs to be done to continue to address the ongoing housing crisis.

The Association is working in tandem with its partners to ensure everyone in Nova Scotia who wants to enter the trades to build more homes has the support and ability to do so. The group is creating a pilot project, with a particular focus on supportive worksites for people with disabilities.

The Association also continues to promote the value of using a REALTOR® to the public. REALTORS® in Canada follow a strict code of ethics and subscribe to ongoing education and professional development through the Association. REALTORS® are guides to Nova Scotian communities and can help their clients understand everything from property taxes and municipal services to property values and the local market.

Dauphinee says that Nova Scotia has an active real estate market right now, one that was marked by low inventory for a substantial time. He has seen an increased interest in home ownership in the province since 2018. The market has stayed competitive because of both the pandemic and the rise in rent prices, which had become competitive with mortgage pricing.

Today, Halifax is still extremely competitive as an entry point into the market, and this competition affects first-time home buyers more than anyone. Work-from-home opportunities have opened housing opportunities in smaller towns and villages like Bridgewater, Lunenberg, Cheverie, and parts of Cape Breton, so this drive from within the market is not limited to the capital city alone.

Boutilier says, “It is going to take cooperation from all three levels of government and industry stakeholders to ensure that all needs are met across the housing spectrum,” which will be hard work—but NSAR is up for the challenge.

Nova Scotia has also seen a huge influx of immigration and migration in the past few years, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, with many people relocating from British Columbia and Ontario. Dauphinee says that, for two decades, the province saw a lot of people go west to find work or take advantage of Nova Scotia’s strong university presence to get educated locally but then find career opportunities elsewhere.

Now that working from home has increased and more businesses have opened in the area, there is more opportunity for the province’s expatriates to return for a homecoming of sorts. Thanks to this and an ongoing population increase, “Everyone is looking for a home,” says Dauphinee, so the work of the Association is more vital than ever.

Several projects are in the works for NSAR as the new year approaches. Dauphinee says that the Association is constantly looking to improve member experience, with technology having taken a big leap with a rise in artificial intelligence and machine learning models. There are some key areas that the Association feels can be improved for members and people in the housing market through these tools.

NSAR will continue to work with clients through Realtor.ca in new and evolving ways, like the launch of new search parameters to help people with mobility needs find accessible or adaptable homes. Government partnerships will also be critical both in finding innovative ways to address housing shortages and affordability. NSAR has valuable insights and data to help government in making key decisions on housing policy. Finally, NSAR will continue to ensure that its members are equipped with the tools and services to provide the best service and experience to the public on their journey toward finding a new home.

The post The Province’s Voice for Real Estate<p class="company">The Nova Scotia Association of REALTORS®</p> appeared first on Business In Focus Magazine.

“We have a great community, and my three children had every opportunity to grow through sports, music, and excellent schools,” she says. “I don’t think they could have had better opportunities anywhere else.”

Peter Douthwright, the Town’s Director of Community Development, echoed her words. He moved here with his family from Fredericton, New Brunswick in 2015. At first, he wasn’t sure about living in a small town.

“We’re a team sports-oriented family and we really got involved,” he shares. “My kids played, I coached, and we made connections. Some people may think there’s nothing to do in a small town, but we found our way and our kids are flourishing. After the move, I had opportunities to move to some big cities across Canada, but I turned every one of them down because our family is proud to have been adopted by this town.”

We were intrigued, as it seems that Dicks and Douthwright are on to something. What else makes New Glasgow an attractive place to live for young adults and their families, and for businesses to thrive, when the trend has been for the populations of other small towns and rural areas to decline as people move to urban centres?

Location, location, location
For one thing, it’s New Glasgow’s ideal location, recognized by the Scottish settlers who arrived in 1784. The Town is situated on the East River, which flows through the Town and empties into Pictou Harbour on the Northumberland Strait.

Located just off the divided Trans Canada Hwy. 104, New Glasgow is just 20 minutes from the Northumberland Ferry Service terminal that connects Nova Scotia with Prince Edward Island; 30 minutes from Truro, the hub of Nova Scotia; and just over an hour from Halifax, the Atlantic region’s largest urban centre and home to the Robert Stanfield International Airport.

According to the latest figures released by Statistics Canada in 2021, the population of the Town, which acts as a regional service centre for the county and Northern Nova Scotia, was 9,471, but that almost doubles when considering inhabitants of the neighbouring towns of Stellarton, Westville, and Trenton.

New Glasgow and the surrounding area are home to several major employers. In New Glasgow itself, there is Aberdeen Regional Hospital, Crombie Properties headquarters, and a mix of retailers and service providers located in the East River Business Park, as well as diverse businesses in the thriving downtown.

Sobey’s headquarters and a campus of the Nova Scotia Community College, meanwhile, are based in Stellarton; Michelin is based in Granton; and St. Francis Xavier University in Antigonish is just 20 minutes away.

Caring for the future
Outstanding location alone isn’t enough to draw people, however, and it seems that the reputation New Glasgow enjoys can be attributed largely to its forward-looking leadership and a fully engaged community.

“One of our most significant community engagement projects,” Mayor Dicks says, “was a community climate summit to which we invited our neighbours from the surrounding towns and Pictou County, and we had excellent attendance. We had speakers who set the tone for where we were going and explained what opportunities we could pursue to mitigate issues surrounding climate change,” she says.

“We’ve always considered sustainability in the asset management work we do including our water utility and all other infrastructure projects. We have also adopted Active Transportation Strategies and an Active Living Plan, to make ourselves more pedestrian-friendly and reduce vehicular traffic, which in turn impacts greenhouse gas emissions. If you live on one side or another of the river you can walk downtown, where there is great shopping, in 10 to 15 minutes. From the core, it’s no more than 20 minutes from anything in any direction,” she explains.

“Over the last three years we came up with community and corporate action plans for setting sustainability goals for the future growth and to reduce greenhouse gas emissions of the Town.”

With strong community support, the Town took on several initiatives and this past April, introduced electric vehicle chargers with dual ports at two locations in the downtown core, one across from the library and the other across from the New Glasgow Farmers Market.

The Town also established a PACE program (Property Assessed Clean Energy) in partnership with CLEAN Nova Scotia and Efficiency NS to enable citizens make their homes more energy-efficient, by improving insulation and installing heat pumps or solar panels. These projects can be completed at a cost of the percentage value of the home, with a loan through the Town and repaid over 10 years with minimal interest.

This is the third year of the program, which has seen a great uptake and is especially important for rural communities where there is an aging housing stock and a dependence on fossil-fuel heating.

The Town is also investigating opportunities to introduce a commercial PACE program to perform energy retrofits in commercial buildings in the downtown core, where some of the oldest buildings in the community would require building envelope and energy source improvements.

“In addition to those big environmental impact projects, our community climate action group has organized some small-scale projects, such as a free clothing swap and tree plantings, that let our citizens know that the little things they do make a difference.”

People first, and first again
Douthwright shares some exciting plans about further community developments in the already attractive downtown core, which hosts musical, multicultural, and Pride events, as well as annual dragon boat races. Truly, there is something happening here every weekend throughout summer and early fall, along the river that flows through the Town centre.

Two major community development projects are in the works at present. One is the redevelopment and transformation of our library, with the space reimagined as more than just a place to get books. It will accommodate a variety of all-ages programs—for children, new Canadians, and seniors—making the space more accessible and inclusive.

“We have received funding of $7.1 million from all funding partners—federal, provincial, and municipal,” he says, “and we’re in the process of doing community consultations, looking at the drawings of the design work, with plans to start with hammer and nails in November.”

The other big community project Mayor Dicks tells us about involves an ambitious streetscape place-making initiative on Viola’s Way in the downtown core, which began in 2018 to honour a connection with Viola Desmond, whose image was unveiled on the ten-dollar bill that year.

Commemorating Viola Desmond
Desmond was an African-Nova Scotian business owner and civil rights activist from Halifax, who challenged racial segregation in 1946 by refusing to leave the “whites-only” section of the Roseland Theatre in New Glasgow and was fined and imprisoned overnight.

“MacGillivray Law, the theatre’s current owner, has invested a significant amount of time and energy to recognize Viola Desmond and the difference she made. The Town has renamed the street that runs past the theatre and connects two one-way streets, ‘Viola’s Way,’” she says. There is also a plaque monument from Parks Canada honouring Viola Desmond, the first time the Historic Sites and Monuments Board has honoured a single person.

“Now we’ve moved to the second phase of the project, and we’ve brought in an architectural team who met with the community and created a design for a streetscape that will tell the African Nova Scotia story. The African Nova Scotia stories from our community are significant and they are stories that we can all reflect upon and share.”

Farmers Market with flair
Dicks and Douthwright are also very proud of the vibrant regional Farmers Market in the downtown core, which received funding from The Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency (ACOA) when it moved from a transient space into a substantial year-round building. “It’s something we hang our hat on,” says the Mayor of the facility which she describes as “one of our most prized locations and a significant contributor to the economy and business community in our region.”

Not only is the market a place to purchase fresh local produce, but it also acts as a business incubator. The Peace by Chocolate company, owned and operated by a Syrian refugee family, found success at the market, and it now has outlets in Antigonish and Halifax and sells products through Sobeys.

Other successful food producers who got their start at the market include Big Cove Foods, which sells spice products internationally, and Bramble Hill Farms, whose fresh micro-greens and products are marketed throughout Nova Scotia and beyond.

Although the Town still honours its Scottish roots, it has become an inclusive multicultural community as the number of restaurants offering ethnic cuisines attest, making it attractive to urban dwellers considering relocating here. Among the offerings are Indian, Chinese, Thai, Middle Eastern, Italian, and Irish.

East River Business Park
At the edge of Town, and conveniently located adjacent to Exit 25 off the TCH 104, is East River Business Park. The recently expanded business park is a joint investment attraction venture between the Town of New Glasgow and the Municipality of the County of Pictou and is owned by New Scotland Business Development Inc., a municipal corporation formed in 2014. Its purpose is to facilitate business development and economic growth opportunities through the sale of business park lands within the region of Pictou County.

Rebranded in 2014, East River Business Park includes a 17-acre expansion to the former New Glasgow Industrial Park. Recently home to Nova Scotia Health’s Orthopedic Assessment Clinic, a multi-unit mixed residential/commercial development, and an oral and maxillofacial surgery, you will also find several long-standing businesses, service providers, and provincial government offices. New Glasgow Regional Police Department is headquartered here, and Scott W. Weeks Sports Complex offers a multitude of recreational opportunities.

East River Business Park is fully serviced with municipal water, separate sanitary and storm sewers, and LED street lighting. Natural gas is also available. Several acres are ready for development with room for future growth. Its proximity to Aberdeen Regional Hospital and North Nova Education Centre, as well as its position along the busiest roadway in Northern Nova Scotia, make East River Business Park a prime location for a variety of business uses.

Concludes Mayor Dicks, “I think the municipality has a strong sense of responsibility to ensuring our infrastructure supports future growth that’s very progressive. I have the confidence to say to any businessperson or entrepreneur considering moving to this area that they will be supported by our municipality; by the Pictou County Partnership, an organization that helps businesses make helpful connections; and through our robust Chamber of Commerce.”

The post The Flourishing of a Small Town<p class="company">Town of New Glasgow, Nova Scotia</p> appeared first on Business In Focus Magazine.

“Our growers love what they’re doing, and that’s probably the ultimate advantage that Truro Cannabis has,” says President Lennie Walser—and the hardest part, too, he adds. “They love it so much they’re never satisfied with what they’re doing. They can always do better in their head when they produce some extremely high-end product. Earnest is probably what I like to say about our team. They have a passion for the product, but also are very smart and always looking to do something new and upgrade and keep educated.”

Self-described “cannabis purists,” the company combines innovative plant science, established cultivation procedures, and craft genetics, resulting in exceptional cannabis products for both medicinal and recreational purposes, all wrapped up in environmentally friendly packaging.

Licensing, of course, is a vital and necessary part of cannabis production in Canada. Housed in two facilities within one-and-a-half kilometers of each other in the Truro Industrial Park, the company’s main facility has a Standard Cultivation License, which means based on its size and security protocols it’s allowed to grow cannabis flower at a larger scale within its legal footprint. The Micro Cultivation License is for the smaller facility which is designated as a micro cannabis facility with a limited canopy size, only allowed to grow in a limited footprint of canopy.

“The Standard Processing Licensing, which is actually the difficult one to achieve with Health Canada, is all done in our main 45,000-square-foot facility,” says Walser. “Our micro, as it’s a separate license, sells a small [quantity of] product back to our main facility.”

Standard processing allows Truro Cannabis to get product into saleable form up to the standard set by Health Canada and the Cannabis Act and Regulations. The company also has the ability to make hash on site and the ability to purchase bulk product.

Indeed, while some other brands simply procure and package, the Truro Cannabis team handles all aspects themselves on site. “Everything Truro Cannabis does as far as organic flower, we grow ourselves in our own facilities,” adds Walser. “The advantage of doing everything in-house is that our control of inner standards is all on us, which makes a big difference for consistency and repeatability.”

Truro Cannabis proudly embraces its advanced plant science and its ability to create outstanding product from start to finish.

“When bringing up the cultivation techniques and genetics and the plant science, you don’t have that control as a contract procurer of cannabis if it’s done somewhere else. I’m sure the product might be very nice—and it’s not a shot at those companies—but we have our own team of master growers, some who have been doing legacy growing well before legalization, and some who are literally plant science graduates from our local college.”

So, if you’re looking for that strategic advantage, what Truro is doing will result in a better opportunity long-term to control each batch.

Although the business of cannabis is legal across the country, the population of the Maritime provinces is small—barely a million people—meaning the business model is also smaller. Stores are housed in 40 Nova Scotia Liquor Corporation (NSLC) locations across the province, approximately 20 in New Brunswick, 41 in Newfoundland, and four in Prince Edward Island. In contrast, there are approximately 215 stores located in the city of Toronto alone. While Ontario stores are tightly regulated, they are private retail models.

“As much as the local government-run facilities have been great to us and supportive of our business, I do like the culture and difference I see in Ontario and Alberta,” adds Walser. “I do personally enjoy that more. I think it just brings more culture and moves the industry forward. It’s not a shot at our provincial groups, I just think it’s fun to see all the different branding and see how everyone does it, versus a cookie cutter [model].”

The team at Truro Cannabis likes to think of cannabis growing as an art as well as a science. Everything the company does is on the leading edge; this means incorporating numerous advanced sensors in growing rooms for microclimates, ensuring that lighting, temperature, and humidity are all on point and that nutrients and feeds are accurate for each stage of the plant.

“We’re using the traditional cultivation techniques, but again, getting a little bit more finite or micro with some things that maybe weren’t traditionally done,” Walser explains. “Things like potential nutrient deficiencies, doing tissue culture analysis, and adjusting the formula—that wasn’t done in the legacy, historic world because they didn’t have those facilities and testing available.”

One of Truro’s advantages is the ability to pull in 200-plus genetics developed over the years, which affords the company a competitive edge. “We were fortunate to have that when we got our license, and that is probably one of the things we’re most proud of,” Walser says. “I like the word exotic. [We offer] rare, unique, and traditional genetics that I think would be very appealing to the cannabis connoisseur.”

This advantage also sparks the passion of Truro’s team, he adds. “There’s nothing more exciting than when they get to pop their seeds. But when we crack the seed, it’s 12 months-plus before that potential genetic or cultivar will ever see the light of day of anyone being able to purchase it at retail. It’s a very long process.”

And it’s a process most—if not all—customers have little understanding of. Growers start with 25-plus seeds and grow up those 25 plants, evaluating every one of them for cannabinoids, shape, weight, and appearance before eventually trimming the selection down to a final one.

“It takes well over a year, and it’s the R&D process that we go through of bringing out new cultivars that takes that long—but it’s also fun and exciting,” Walser shares.

The industry does still face certain challenges. Every cannabis company in Canada, whether private or publicly funded, has very little access to bank loans or funding from federal or provincial governments. As a private company, everything Truro Cannabis has done has come from private shareholders, with wins or losses coming out of those private persons’ pockets.

“A lot of earlier, licensed companies did not succeed in profitability and are struggling financially,” says Walser. “So now a cannabis business going to banks is too high-risk a profile because so many have lost money and gone under.”

The Excise Tax Act (ETA)—a federal law governing the administration and collection of excise taxes levied on specific goods and services, including cannabis produced in Canada—is another ongoing concern.

“I’m not actually opposed to the Excise Tax, but I think fundamentally, when it was created, the model was looking at a much higher price per gram at retail. The essential concept was the 10 percent tax rate, but because the cost per gram has gone down and the excise tax is not a percentage of the selling price, you’re getting some cannabis sales where anywhere from 25 to 50 percent of the sale is now excise tax.”

The biggest issue right now is having a fixed rate for flower versus a percentage, and it’s the same on the extract side, which is essentially 10 cents per milligram of THC, he adds. “Again, I would much rather it be a percentage based on the dollar value. Essentially, we do some concentrates and the excise tax is pretty much half the price. It’s almost essentially 40 percent of our wholesale product number.”

Walser also brings up issues within Nova Scotia and all provincial wholesalers: Cannabis is the only industry where it can take a year to create a new product without the guarantee to sell it to a consumer unless a provincial licensing body decides to put it into their menu.

“So there’s a risk that you can take a year, grow a million dollars’ worth of product, and not actually be able to get in front of the consumer,” he says. “That’s probably our most stressful thing. It’s a gamble for a cannabis company to create a new product and potentially not have it listed.”

Truro Cannabis has managed to be pretty lucky in this area, however, although luck isn’t the only reason for its ongoing success. “There are a lot of companies that had a lot more money and resources than us that are no longer in the space. So we do feel pretty blessed that we’re still around,” says Walser.

While the goal is to remain profitable for shareholders in upcoming years, he foresees some regression in the industry without significant regulatory changes. Another goal is licensing for export opportunities and developing more of an international profile.

“We’re nearly a national brand and we definitely have cannabis in almost every province and on both oceans, so I’m pretty proud of that,” he says. “We don’t do a lot of marketing. We’re in a small town—Truro, Nova Scotia, with about 17,000 people—and when we see our logo and merchandise appear across Canada it kind of warms the heart a little bit.”

Along with the commitment and pride that fuel the company’s ongoing growth and success, Walser again mentions the passion of all team members to keep creating the best quality product for consumers.

“It’s the motto of Truro Cannabis and the unofficial mission statement that if we won’t smoke it, we won’t grow it,” he says. “That’s basically what sets us apart from some of the other companies. We also don’t do things the easy way; we don’t take shortcuts.”

That means taking the right length of time to ensure the highest-quality seed for the highest-quality weed. “There’s an art to it, and taking the time to do it is key,” says Walser. “I think that’s what’s going to set us apart long-term. Consistent, quality product every time is what we shoot for.”

The post Best Buds: Commitment and Passion for High-Quality Product<p class="company">Truro Cannabis</p> appeared first on Business In Focus Magazine.

Located approximately halfway between Phoenix and Tucson along Arizona’s Golden Corridor, Casa Grande’s growing renown as a secure community for investment and a vibrant place to call home has put it on the radar—and everyone is taking notice.

Discover Casa Grande
For the over 60,000 residents and the nearly 15,000 snowbirds from Canada, the Midwest, and the East Coast who escape cold climes for the 300-plus days a year of Sonoran Desert sun, Casa Grande is home.

The community has long been a destination of choice for residents who are attracted to the idyllic weather, local culture, cost of living, and availability and affordability of land, but the same can now be said for business and industry on a far greater scale.

“From an affordability standpoint, it translates to not just land for industrial uses but the cost of housing,” says Richard Wilkie, Economic Development Director for Casa Grande. “If you move here, that’s more money in your pocket. You also spend much less time on the road than you would commuting in the Valley; even during the busiest times, you could be at work in 15 to 20 minutes, which means more time at home with the family or being involved with the community.”

These easy commutes are possible because of the optimal connectivity and infrastructure Casa Grande boasts. As a strategic hub, the community is directly served by Interstates Eight and Ten and the main line of the Union Pacific Railroad, and is within one hour of three major commercial airports. And, if that’s not enough, it is just over seven hours from the Port of Long Beach and three hours from two ports of entry into Mexico.

In addition to Interstates Eight and Ten, Wilkie notes that, “A proposed Interstate Eleven would connect Canada to Mexico through the United States, and that will either go through our community or immediately adjacent to the community to the west of us for enhanced connectivity.”

Being proximate and connected also enables Casa Grande to take advantage of growth in neighboring communities. The world’s largest chip manufacturer, TSMC, is investing $40 billion in North Phoenix, for instance. Casa Grande has managed to attract many of its suppliers who have been drawn to the availability and low cost of land: 2,400 flat, ready-to-develop acres zoned for industrial use. Access to a skilled workforce is also a significant perk.

Success breeds success
From an industrial standpoint, sustainability is an important consideration, one that the city of Casa Grande doesn’t take lightly. The community and its officials are very conscious that they are situated in a desert and water is a finite resource.

From Wilkie’s perspective, “We’re very conscious of the types of businesses that we’re actively recruiting. We’re looking for good, solid companies that are high-tech, high-skilled, pay well, have good benefits, and are good stewards of the environment, too. That helps diversify our economy, which strengthens its sustainability.”

Lucid Motors is a great example of those principles in action. The company established its first electric vehicle production facility in Casa Grande, sending large economic ripples through the community. The plant will undergo four phases of expansion, involving—in its most recently announced plans—tripling its 800,000-square-foot footprint to accommodate the production of additional models.

“Here’s the next generation of electric vehicle manufacturers that decided to locate their advanced manufacturing plant here in Casa Grande, the first green-build electric vehicle manufacturing plant in the country,” says Wilkie, who notes that while the company already employs 2,000 people, that will need to be increased significantly over the next three to five years.

“They’re still projecting to create over 6,200 jobs, so that’s a significant job creator for the community. That’s been one of the big drivers of new employment, and through that announcement, and throughout the last several years, we’ve gotten even more companies to realize that Casa Grande is a really good place to take a look at,” he says.

Lucid was certainly Casa Grande’s big break, but more than anything, what it did was draw attention to the community and exponentially grow the rate of investment. This attracted other companies, like Kohler—a global manufacturer of kitchen and bathroom products—which invested in a 1,000,000-square-foot factory that will result in more than 400 jobs.

More recently, NRS Logistics America Inc., a chemical and gas logistics service provider, announced that they had just bought land and held an official groundbreaking ceremony for their new operation in Casa Grande. The company closed on 40 acres that include four acres of rail right of way, proving that success is breeding success.

Wilkie is also sure to credit small businesses, which he referred to as the “lifeblood of our community,” and which remain a focus of economic development efforts along with the support for the industrial investments taking place.

“That’s what is leading to future growth; all of this is generating a surge in retail and commercial. We’ve added more than a dozen new restaurants over the last two years, a new auto park is planned with four to five new dealerships, and there is a planned dual-branded TownPlace Suites and Fairfield Inn & Suites by Marriott. Exciting things are going on and picking up speed,” he says.

A home-grown workforce
With this volume of economic activity, the workforce has to be a priority for Casa Grande, and most certainly, it is. Currently, the city can draw from around the region and state, tapping into the pipeline of skilled and educated residents in the area.

Casa Grande is also focused on developing its own talent. The city is working with the local school districts, Central Arizona College, Pinal County, and the State of Arizona, through entities like Arizona at Work, to provide training and job placement services and see that workforce needs, both current and future, are met.

Programs like Drive48 are examples of the city’s collaboration in action where government, industry, and academia work together to support and grow Arizona’s workforce through training efforts and the establishment of a state-of-the-art training facility. Likewise, Casa Grande’s economic development officials and city leadership are helping to bridge the gap between education and industry to ensure that the development of curricula directly supports the needs of the local economy.

Wilkie highlights several career technical education (CTE) opportunities in automation, robotics, automotive, and other skills development that align with business needs, and notes that, “Growing our own is an important part of the workforce equation.”

The work is never done
To ensure that the growth taking place is sustainable, Casa Grande maintains a Master General Plan to guide its investment in infrastructure to support the growth that is projected to last deep into the 2030s and beyond. This includes conservation measures to reduce water usage by fifteen percent over the next ten years, as well as major infrastructure expansions.

“We currently have a twelve million gallon per day processing capacity at our wastewater treatment facility,” Wilkie shares. “We’re currently using about six and a half million of it and the city has already committed another $30 to $40 million over the next two years to expand that facility. Part of our expansion of the wastewater treatment and collections facility is that we’re incorporating an effluent line that would be able to supply A+ treated effluent back into the industrial corridor. So the manufacturers that don’t really need potable water for their operations can use effluent—reducing, retaining, and protecting the water that could be used in other ways.”

Casa Grande engages with Arizona Water to promote better water conservation efforts community-wide, continuing to be good stewards of a finite resource that’s necessary for residents and the economy alike to function.

It should come with some relief that none of this will impact Casa Grande’s ability to grow, whether industrially or in the provision of residential sites. Despite the state putting a cap on the number of new certificates of assured water supply for new single-family homes, Casa Grande has over 17,000 lots already certified. This is truly a win, given the number of new jobs that will be added to the region in the coming years. With the strength of diversity in its economy, the strong focus on investments that make sense, and a quality of life that has long attracted people from far and wide to the community, Casa Grande is on a trajectory for success in the long haul.

Wilkie is quick to point out that it took many hands to make this a reality. “We have a great City Council and City Management that have continued to support our efforts to attract and retain these companies, and an amazing staff, especially in our planning and development and public works department, who play such a vital role in our success,” he says. “Economic development is a team effort that goes beyond the city and includes our partners like Central Arizona College, ARIZONA@WORK, Pinal County, our utilities (APS, AZ Water, Southwest Gas), landowners, and of course, industry.”

For Wilkie and his team, the effort has paid off: “We’re no longer an unknown,” he says. “We’ve finally been discovered and now we’ve built the reputation we want amongst these types of industries. Casa Grande is worth taking a look at!”

The post Yours to Discover<p class="company">City of Casa Grande, Arizona</p> appeared first on Business In Focus Magazine.

Since we last spoke in 2022, Economic Development Director Micah Miranda says that Chandler has seen near-record job growth, largely the result of on-shoring efforts by the city’s advanced technology manufacturers, specifically those within the semiconductor and advanced manufacturing supply chain. These industries are leading the pack in growth, with jobs opening quickly across engineering disciplines with positions in mechanical, electrical, and software engineering.

“It’s been a very busy year for the city,” Miranda says.

Several businesses in these booming sectors have opened new facilities in Chandler, such as Edwards Vacuum and Yield Engineering Systems. Miranda says that the construction and operation of these new facilities are capital-intensive projects that depend on the city’s high-quality workforce, existing infrastructure, and community expertise in supporting advanced manufacturers.

Chandler always thinks ahead in terms of creating a desirable environment for business growth, and Miranda says that product is what wins projects. For this reason, the city has for years encouraged the speculative development of high-quality office and industrial buildings that suit a wide variety of industry location needs. When the right business project presents itself, Chandler is then well-positioned to land it. Most of these businesses have tight project timeframes that do not work if a new building needs to be constructed.

Miranda says that Chandler approaches economic development through a couple of core pillars. The first of these is financial stability, as the city takes pride in being a stable community in which to do business. In fact, it is one of only about 40 communities across America that have a triple-A bond rating from all three rating agencies.

The city takes this development pillar very seriously, and Miranda says that one’s investment will be safe in the city.

Workforce is the second pillar of economic development, and Chandler enjoys a positive feedback loop wherein its companies employ highly educated workers, and these companies and workers support area school districts, charter, and parochial schools to ensure the best educational opportunities and outcomes for future generations.

“We have a pro-business environment,” Miranda says, and both the mayor of Chandler and its city council have been clear in their efforts to think creatively to solve problems on behalf of the city’s partners.

When it comes to businesses looking to get started in Chandler, he says the biggest piece of feedback he receives is how easy it is for new companies to work with city staff across all departments. The process starts with economic development and goes through planning, engineering, civil site work, and more, in a seamless process to ensure new companies do not get lost in the shuffle. Prospective businesses are assigned a project manager on economic development, who works together with other departments and external stakeholders such as the school district and the state of Arizona on matters of available incentives, or with the county on regulatory issues.

Part of the city’s communication strategy is to let businesses know the Chandler Economic Development Division should be the first point of contact if they are planning to move to the city or considering locations throughout the greater Phoenix region or Arizona. These days, businesses need to move faster than ever, so the city’s ability to respond quickly and effectively is a definite incentive.

While regulation can be a sticking point for on-shoring businesses, “Our job is to make it as frictionless as possible for businesses coming to Chandler,” Miranda says.

There are still a few challenges that the city continues to proactively navigate: namely water. However, Chandler is unique in that while it is in a desert, it has secured and maintained a diverse water resource portfolio.

The city has access to several water sources: Salt River Project (SRP); Central Arizona Project (CAP); and a well-supplied aquifer. The surface water provided by SRP and CAP is a significant resource for Chandler, but the long-term commitment to maintaining its well fields has proven to be a differentiator to managing a thriving and resilient community.

Miranda says that Chandler currently has 15 years of water supply underneath the city. To support this, it has been investing in its water recapture system, with every drop of water being captured, recycled, and reused, either in industrial processes, irrigation, landscaping, or other non-potable uses. With further investment into a sustainable water infrastructure system, the city has been well prepared to deal with water problems for decades.

Another challenge is that Chandler itself is running out of raw land, with approximately 95 percent of land being built upon, so the city is rethinking growth and development, including verticality. Miranda says that the city will become denser over time, but because of the limited availability of raw land, it will become more selective in the types of economic development projects it proactively pursues, with greater attention paid to projects that have a long-term, significant economic benefit to the community.

Chandler has been immersed in business and economic development for 50 years now, with Miranda saying that there is not a city in America that has more experience with companies on-shoring or developing new technology. The city knows everything about how to get campuses and individual projects up and running quickly, with decades of experience supporting companies that have invested billions of dollars into Chandler.

Miranda says that many Fortune 500 companies come to Chandler because of the city’s reputation for getting businesses operational quickly. Many companies are up and running within six months as opposed to as long as two years elsewhere in the country. Its efforts have earned Chandler the moniker of Innovation and Technology Hub of the Southwest.

From the top down, city leadership is committed to having Chandler be a great place to live and where businesses can flourish. Although the title is a lot to live up to, Miranda says that it is ingrained in Chandler’s DNA and the city will continue to lean into its unique identity.

Going into 2024 and beyond, the emphasis will be on how the city can maintain and increase economic vitality through verticality. The city will be updating its general plan over the next couple of years and gathering community input on what that will look like. The office market is beginning to see a rebound in the number of leads from office leasing projects, with interest primarily driven by a strong local labor force, which is one way that the city will stay competitive.

Chandler is one of the most educated cities in America and Miranda says it will continue to grow in that respect, with the city investing in workforce development programs and forging partnerships with higher education institutions to remain economically competitive for high-value projects. The City of Chandler’s future is as bright as ever, and it welcomes all to bring their innovative ideas and projects to its flourishing business community.

The post Innovative Ideas and a Growth Mindset Mean Big Developments<p class="company">City of Chandler, Arizona</p> appeared first on Business In Focus Magazine.

Technology giants Intel and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited both operate within the region, creating an ideal environment for related businesses. Recent expansions at Intel have created even more opportunities for companies that support the technology sector.

“There’s been a tremendous influx of those types of support companies,” says Josh Rutherford, Economic Development Special Project Administrator for the City of Tempe. This is in addition to technology companies that were already operating in the city, such as Cactus Materials, Viasat, and Foresight Technology.

After more than 20 years in Tempe, Foresight Technology has some exciting expansion plans. “They purchased a lot next to them with an existing two-story office building,” Rutherford says. “They’re going to repurpose it into light manufacturing, which we like more of in Tempe. They’re going to invest substantial assets and people into that project and then as they grow even more, they’re going to possibly build a new building on site. Over the course of the next 10 years, they’re expected to add about 250 employees.”

Honeywell Aerospace also just completed an expansion that involved demolishing a multi-story office building and constructing two industrial buildings with office space.

Additional industrial projects will ensure that varied businesses will have the space they need in the future. The former Insight office building has been demolished and will be replaced with three new, state-of-the-art industrial buildings. The former site of Big Surf Water Park is currently being transformed into a new industrial park. In addition, developers are currently considering redeveloping one of Tempe’s large, two-story office buildings into three industrial buildings.

Arizona State University’s main campus is located in the heart of Tempe, and the university also has new development projects underway that will have a positive impact on the downtown. “It’s a several-hundred-acre piece of land that they’re moving forward with mixed-use development on,” explains Rutherford.

The city is also hard at work revitalizing the historic Hayden Flour Mill and silos. “Last year, there was a request for proposal put out for Hayden Flour Mill,” Rutherford says. “Tempe City Council will consider a Development and Disposition Agreement between Sunbelt Holdings and Venue Project on October 12. The first phase of that development agreement will include an inventory of original equipment left in the mill, rehabilitation of the trailhead, and general cleanup of the site.”

With so much development and business expansion underway, new employees relocating to Tempe will need housing. City planners are working hard to meet the upcoming demand and to make sure that there is housing available for all income levels. To this end, Tempe’s Hometown for All initiative was established in 2021 to provide options so that everyone can call Tempe home.

The City of Tempe recently purchased the former Food City site and two adjacent parking lots to create 400 housing units. “It’s going to be a mixed-income project with at least 50 percent affordable housing,” Rutherford shares, “and then the rest will probably be a mixture of market rate and workforce housing with a ground-floor grocer. This was one of the specific items in the request for proposal because we are experiencing what we believe is a food desert in that area. The need for grocery there is really high and so too is the need for housing.”

In addition, the City of Tempe purchased a nearby shopping center, “where we’ve relocated some tenants from the Food City site and, hopefully, within about three to five years, that site may get redeveloped as well into affordable housing.” The initiative also recently purchased a hotel and has converted it into transitional housing. Hometown for All is currently in the process of buying several vacant lots for future housing developments.

Private development has also taken off around Apache Boulevard. “From the private development side, there are probably about 2,000 units in the pipeline right now that have either been permitted or are currently under construction,” says Rutherford. “And there are probably another 1,000 to 1,500 that have not been permitted yet.” This means that there will be plenty of housing for incoming residents eager to take advantage of everything Tempe has to offer. “There are well over 3,500 units that will come online over the next few years.”

As these developments move forward, city leaders have officially acknowledged the historical and cultural significance of the historic homelands in Tempe of The Salt River Pima–Maricopa Indian Community (SRP-MIC) and Gila River Indian Community (GRIC). “They are a major partner in this development,” says Rutherford. “They sit at the table. We have monthly meetings with them. They’re apprised of every step that we’ve taken as far as the development agreement.”

In 2021, the City Council approved the resolution, which is now part of the city’s educational programs, ceremonies, and holiday observances and is considered when making decisions regarding land use and development. As listed on tempe.gov, the official statement is as follows:

“We wish to acknowledge that Tempe is the homeland of the Native people who have inhabited this landscape since time immemorial. Anthropological studies document large and advanced Ancestral O’Odham settlements located throughout the entirety of present-day Tempe and recognize the ancestral lands of the O’Odham (known as the Pima), Piipaash (known as the Maricopa), and their ancestors as extending far beyond our community. This land continues to be spiritually connected to the O’Odham of the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community and Gila River Indian Community. The SRP-MIC and GRIC, located northeast and south of Tempe, respectively, are confederations of two unique groups with their own languages, customs, cultures, religions, and histories; the O’Odham and the Piipaash. Both the O’Odham and the Piipaash are oral history cultures.

“The landscape is sacred to the O’Odham and Piipaash and reflects cultural values that are central to their way of life and their self-definition. Their oral history and song culture are indelibly tied to tangible places that are associated with specific historic, cultural, and religious values. Settlement patterns, advanced irrigation practices, and other lifeways driven by a deep understanding of and respect for the landscape are directly attributable to the ancestors of the O’Odham and Piipaash and served as the template for the establishment of Tempe. We accept the responsibility of stewarding those places and solemnly pledge to consider this commitment in every action.”

In addition, the Tempe City Council just “unanimously approved a city holiday observing Indigenous People’s Day,” Rutherford says. “That will be the second Monday of every October, starting this year.”

Looking ahead, the trend for Tempe will be continued development, particularly when it comes to multistory projects. “The urbanization of Tempe is going vertical,” Rutherford says. “As of last week, there are projects being approved that are upwards of 28 stories… I think we’re going to continue to see that high-rise, urban core density increase in the downtown. And then along our rail corridor, you’re going see a lot of mid-rise multifamily projects.”

From technology industry expansions to affordable housing developments, Tempe is preparing for tomorrow today, ensuring that businesses and residents will have their needs met well into the future.

The post Building Opportunity<p class="company">Tempe, Arizona</p> appeared first on Business In Focus Magazine.

Nestled in the Sonoran desert and surrounded by majestic mountain ranges, Maricopa played a significant role in the growth of the southwest. In the mid-1800s, the water-rich outpost became an important stagecoach station and center for trade. Then, as technology advanced and times changed, Maricopa shifted its location to become a railroad junction.

Just as previous community leaders focused on growth and development—going so far as to relocate the community to take advantage of burgeoning opportunities—today’s city leaders are actively and thoughtfully working to expand the community. “We tell everyone we meet, ‘Come build a city with us,’” Price says.

MEDA works hard to support businesses that want to take advantage of all that the city has to offer. “Maricopa makes it easy for companies to locate, expand, and grow,” he points out. The organization works hand in hand with the city to provide local and regional socioeconomic data, gathers resources, and identifies potential sites for incoming businesses. The MEDA team also hosts corporate and site consultants visiting the community.

Maricopa City’s ‘VIP Portal’ provides continuous online access, allowing businesses to expedite inspections, print and apply for permits, upload plans, and track progress. During the initial application process, the city encourages co-track planning when applying for permits. There is a “collective belief in speed-to-market for business,” he says.

Maricopa is investing in itself to remain an attractive, sensible alternative to nearby Phoenix—or any other city, for that matter. The team is currently preparing greenfield land for present and future business development. The city has already been building critical municipal amenities with the support of its citizens.

“Everything is brand new,” Price says. This includes new libraries, new community centers, new recreational facilities, new dispatch and police stations, new fire stations, new transportation infrastructure, a new municipal courthouse, and much more.

One of the biggest new developments is Exceptional Healthcare’s community hospital. The first phase opened in December 2021 and includes an internal medicine hospital, a twenty-four-hour emergency room, a digital imaging suite, an in-house lab, and patient hospital beds for acute admission and overnight observation of patients. The second phase of expansion will be underway soon.

Incoming businesses will find a top-notch local workforce in Maricopa. “You have a lot of very intellectual people who are well educated,” Price notes. The median household income is $77,859, and almost 40 percent of residents hold a college degree: 11.4 percent have an associate’s degree, 16.5 percent have a bachelor’s degree, and 8.8 percent have a graduate or professional degree. An additional 27.8 percent of residents have had some college education.

Certainly, workforce development is a strong city focus. The local public school system and educational institutions, including the University of Arizona and Central Arizona College, work closely with the business community, coordinating curricula and training courses to prepare future young professionals and technology workers for local opportunities.

MEDA’s and the City’s efforts have helped create a community that has a “small-town feel with urbanized benefits,” according to Price.

Local festivals and events include the Fourth of July festival, Salsa Festival, Pumpkin Walk, Merry Copa, Night Market events, and the hot air balloon event Copa Glow. A special event celebrating the twentieth anniversary of the city’s official incorporation will take place later this year.

The community remains friendly and interactive, despite its growing numbers. “You can see people at the events; you see them in the grocery store. You can walk up to your mayor and council and speak with them.”

While mayor, he made it a point to personally respond to people who reached out on social media and attended as many local events as possible. “I tried to get to all high school graduations here,” he remembers. “It does give you a small-town feel. You can meet your neighbors and have a local block party with the entire street.”

Balancing this warm, welcoming vibe with continued growth takes effort. “It really does have a small-town feel but, at the same time, with a hyper-growing city, you are always increasing the tourism aspects [and] the schools are always growing,” Price says. “The neighborhoods are growing rapidly as well as the interest in creating industry here locally, and that’s what we here at MEDA are focused on. How do we attract the very best industries to help complement the community and keep people where they are already living, working, and playing?”

After growing the local population and amenities, there is a new area of focus. “The business sector is really what we’re after now, so that we can keep our residents here instead of commuting into the Phoenix Metro Area every day,” Price explains.

Markets that MEDA has targeted for growth include semiconductor and advanced manufacturing, automotive—specifically electric-powered and autonomous vehicles—healthcare and medical technology, information technology, agricultural technology, and agri-business.

While city leaders’ efforts have certainly boosted Maricopa’s desirability, the community was already a natural alternative to Phoenix. “We were a little farming town and had been for one hundred years or so,” he says. “Then, all of a sudden, the housing boom comes along in the 2000s, and in the housing boom, you had everybody going crazy in the Phoenix Metro Area, buying up whatever was left, and they pretty much they ran out of places. So developers began looking to the outskirts of the Phoenix area to buy cheap land where they could build new destination points, new neighborhoods, et cetera, and that’s really how we started.”

One of the key factors that attracted developers here is the supply of water—which is critical in the Southwest. “One of the things that is amazing about the City of Maricopa is we sit on Pinal County’s largest aquifer, and we have access to that groundwater,” says Price. “The City of Maricopa has a large allotment of roughly 23,000 acre-feet of water through a company called Global Water, and their Designation of Assured Water Supply (DAWS) from the state of Arizona positions them well for growth and expansion over the next hundred years.”

After being overlooked for decades, this oasis in the desert has finally been getting its due. “In the early 1900s, considering our phenomenal history with the railroad as a center for commerce and trade in central Arizona, things changed overnight and we transitioned into a sleepy little farming community—until the modern day developers realized what they had here. As the Phoenix Metro Area was filling up, they basically said, ‘this place called Maricopa is the next frontier.’ So that’s really what Maricopa has become, the next frontier of progress and growth. In the early 2000s, we started off as a hyper-growing suburb focused on housing, but long-term that isn’t sustainable without industry and commercial businesses. You can’t just drive into a suburb and have no place to go buy a gallon of milk, to visit a restaurant, to have businesses to frequent, or to have some sort of tourism.”

So the newly incorporated City of Maricopa and its elected city council members recognized the need “to change our direction,” Price says. “We needed to control our future and enhance our quality of life. We needed to start planning things out so that we didn’t just become a suburb that filled with a maximum capacity of houses and then died under its own weight. We needed to become self-sustaining, self-contained, and ultimately become a regional industrial and commercial player.”

Today this vision includes several planned developments to support incoming markets that will employ residents. An S3 Biotech medical and innovation campus is currently underway that will include the city’s second hospital, medical office buildings, a 136-unit multifamily residential complex, and a hotel. Other anticipated projects for the near future include a business incubator, expanded retail developments, single-family housing, and more.

Recreational and tourism opportunities will also be expanding. Maricopa’s Adventure Corridor—a stretch along Route 238 home to a number of adventurous activities—is adding a new facility. The 74-acre Phoenix Surf waterpark will feature onsite hospitality, retail, dining, and an outdoor entertainment center. Construction of this long-anticipated fun in the sun is expected in late 2023.

Maricopa’s Adventure Corridor already boasts the champion golf course Ak-Chin Southern Dunes Golf Club; APEX Motor Club, a private motorsports club where participants can drive up to 160 miles per hour on the club’s track; Arizona Soaring, a professional glider training and flight site; and the skydiving facility Skydive Phoenix.

Rich with opportunity, high quality of life, educated residents, and a government committed to economic development, Maricopa has earned its place as one of the nation’s fastest-growing cities. With the community eager to continue its path of successful growth, the sky’s the limit for the future of this once-forgotten outpost, now transformed into one of the Southwest’s most sought-after locations.

The post Arizona’s Expansive Frontier<p class="company">Maricopa Economic Development Alliance </p> appeared first on Business In Focus Magazine.