Economy Thread

[manny_santos]

AM980 reporting that both Future Shop stores in London are closed permanently and will not convert to Best Buy. Not surprising, particularly with the proximity of the two stores on Wellington Road.

Strathroy Audio Video must be feeling very giddy today. Two fewer competitors in London to know them.

[Snark]

Originally Posted by manny_santos

AM980 reporting that both Future Shop stores in London are closed permanently and will not convert to Best Buy.

Strathroy Audio Video must be feeling very giddy today. Two fewer competitors in London to know them.

Hardly surprising. Same owner and too many outlets that are too close to each other. The other thing is that the market is permanently saturated with products. Any one who wants or can afford a TV, phone, or computer already has one or two or five or even more than that. The market isn't expanding beyond nominal population growth: it's now just people upgrading. When I was a kid one bought this stuff at boutiqueish specialty stores (got my first sound system at Wickam's). Now this stuff is as ubiquitous as any other consumer product and one can literally buy this stuff at a grocery store.

Feel badly for the folks out of a job though. Hopefully they will get better ones outside of retail hell.

[MolsonExport]

am980

This kinda sucks. I used to shop at FutureShop all the time...but my patronage has really tapered off in the past few years (never buy DVDs/CDs anymore, Apple purchases switched to Apple Store and online, etc.). I still preferred FS to Best-Buy (aka Worst Service).

[Dither City]

Kellogg plant redevelopment possibilities positive side expectation large Toronto-based development firm purchasing the land odds just increased dramatically of site being developed. Local development industry doe's not have expertise or savvy handle a project of this scale. Fabulous news for old east village inner-city area density is the name of the game London.
http://www.lfpress.com/2015/04/02/of...-kellogg-plant

[K85]

Wonder what they plan to demo and keep, what they're gonna make of it, and what impact that Air Liquide beside it will have towards zoning or whatever

[Rosso Corsa]

IKEA announced today they're opening a satellite store on Wonderland and Southdale in the old Angelo's building. It's pickup only, so not a full size store, but for those who like IKEA it will save you a drive to Burlington and back.

[haljackey]

Never been to one.

All I know about Ikea is:
1. Cheap sawdust and glue furniture
2. Swedish Meatballs
3. Monkey?

[HillStreetBlues]

I went to an Ikea once; it wasn’t particularly worse than any other big box store ordeal. The rest of my knowledge of it comes from disposing of Ikea furniture that tenants leave behind when they move out of apartments. They often don’t seem to think that, after a year’s use, the furniture is worth the gas in the U-Haul to move it to their new place. And after trying to sell some of it and finding that very few other people do, either, I’m at least happy that it’s easier to dismantle than I’ve heard it is to assemble.

I suppose this is great news for people who don’t apparently have money for real furniture, and don’t mind being conduits for poorly-made consumer goods built in other countries to travel to local landfills.

[MrSlippery519]

Originally Posted by HillStreetBlues

I went to an Ikea once; it wasn’t particularly worse than any other big box store ordeal. The rest of my knowledge of it comes from disposing of Ikea furniture that tenants leave behind when they move out of apartments. They often don’t seem to think that, after a year’s use, the furniture is worth the gas in the U-Haul to move it to their new place. And after trying to sell some of it and finding that very few other people do, either, I’m at least happy that it’s easier to dismantle than I’ve heard it is to assemble.

I suppose this is great news for people who don’t apparently have money for real furniture, and don’t mind being conduits for poorly-made consumer goods built in other countries to travel to local landfills.

I find that Ikea certainly has cheap poor quality stuff, but if you pay attention they do have good quality furniture as well. I bought 2 end tables there about 5 years ago (they are solid wood) and they have held up great. We recently moved and a few people commented on their weight and were shocked when I told them they came from Ikea.

Same with dressers, a friend just bought one for his daughter and it is solid wood throughout and well constructed overall.

Now absolutely they do sell just as much cheap laminated particle board stuff that as you said, gets put together once and if it needs to be moved its pretty much garbage.

Back to the building, I am interested to see how the layout is going to be. I assume they are just going to occupy the old Angelo's portion and not take over any adjacent space. 40,000 sq-ft is really not that big, a full size Ikea's warehouse alone has to be pushing 80,000 sq-ft so I doubt they will have a lot of actual inventory on site.

[Rosso Corsa]

Originally Posted by MrSlippery519

I find that Ikea certainly has cheap poor quality stuff, but if you pay attention they do have good quality furniture as well.

Agreed. In my experience their higher end furniture is better than the price equivalent at Teppermans, Sears home, Leons, etc. It has a more modern design and seems to be better quality.

The rest of my knowledge of it comes from disposing of Ikea furniture that tenants leave behind when they move out of apartments

Students

[HillStreetBlues]

Originally Posted by Rosso Corsa

Students

Actually, no. I see all of the students' old furniture and other junk by the curb on May 1, so I know they're even worse offenders, but they're not who I was talking about. It's true that most of the people I'm talking about are on the young side, but they're usually couples with jobs. I'm obliged to check whether they want this stuff any more, so I'll e-mail to make sure I can dispose of it. They're usually apologetic about leaving it, and cite reasons like "it doesn't fit anywhere in our new apartment" or "I put it together in there and didn't want to damage the walls moving it out" or "I have a spare, and there wasn't much room in the truck."

I did not know that Ikea has different levels of quality, so thanks for the education on that.

Given the size of the location, this must be strictly a pick-up spot; I imagine you get the call when the item is in and pick it up within x days. I wonder what their volume would be at a service like this in London.

[ssiguy]

London's economy is certainly on the come-back trail.

Lasting StatsCan figures for May/15 shows London's 3 month average unemployment rate is at 6.1%.............below both the provincial and national averages.

[haljackey]

I'm sure a lot has to do with people giving up looking for work and more and more people retiring.

London needs to be much more aggressive attracting decent paying full time jobs or else Other cities / regions will keep vacuuming them up.

[haljackey]

Don’t let the numbers fool you, London’s economy is in better shape now than it was a year ago

http://www.lfpress.com/2015/09/14/do...mbers-fool-you

[MolsonExport]

Strengthening economy helping fill commercial, industrial space in London

[Wharn]

Originally Posted by haljackey

I'm sure a lot has to do with people giving up looking for work and more and more people retiring.

London needs to be much more aggressive attracting decent paying full time jobs or else Other cities / regions will keep vacuuming them up.

Old post, but I'm not sure how much there is for municipal governments to do. Besides which, there are serious issues at the Provincial level that need to be rectified before the cities can start to compete on a North American level (clients always seem to cite high electricity costs and high personal tax rates as impediments/disincentives for expansion, both of which are not going away)

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

Strengthening economy helping fill commercial, industrial space in London

And by reading this article I indirectly learn that Aboutown is slowly circling the drain. But it's good to see the space is being put to decent use. These faux-industrial offices seem to be all the rage nowadays. The suburban office vacancy rate is actually pretty impressive. Last I checked, the suburban rate in the GTA was around 12%. The downtown rate is kind of depressing, though. As is the existing industrial vacancy rate (considering York Region, a higher-cost environment, is somewhere in the region of 4.5%).

[MolsonExport]

Unemployment rate for London-St. Thomas dropped to 6.2 per cent in December

Plunging oil prices and the swooning loonie may be sapping Canada’s economy, but don’t tell that to London — it ended 2015 with a bang, notching a 6.2 per cent jobless rate and piling up another 1,400 new jobs.

London’s unemployment rate fell to 6.2 per cent in December from 6.8 per cent in November, Statistics Canada said in its monthly jobs report Friday.

But the big takeaway for 2015 — the local economy’s comeback year — is that London gained 9,300 jobs. That includes 3,800 jobs in manufacturing, an industry that took the brunt of the area’s punishment during the 2008 recession, but which is now coming back strong with exports aided by a low dollar that makes our good cheaper to buy.

The London-St. Thomas area is also benefitting from booming U.S. manufacturing, which is running close to capacity and finally spilling over to Southwestern Ontario, said Peter Hall, the chief economist with Export Development Canada.

“A great wave of growth has washed into the manufacturing heart of the country. It’s central Canada’s time at the moment,” said Hall.

Significantly, after running one of Canada’s highest big-city jobless rates not long ago, London now beats a city — Calgary — that boasted one of Canada’s lowest jobless rates before last year’s collapse in oil prices kicked the stuffing out of the energy sector and started the dollar’s nosedive.

Read more by clicking above link

[manny_santos]

http://www.lfpress.com/2016/11/04/pe...erage-its-size

It's been awhile since I've commented much on London as compared to other cities, but now that I've lived in Toronto for over a year I almost feel like Mr. Pearson spoke directly to me when he says in this article:

(Mid-sized cities) do have advantages to offer that citizens in the mega-cities likely wish they could enjoy every day. Think of their hour-long commutes to work, houses priced in the million-dollar range, or the sense of isolation from living alone in a city of millions.

My commute in Toronto is about exactly an hour each way on a good day, and sometimes an hour and a half if there's trouble on the TTC. Buying property is not even a discussion point for me, and even though Toronto has a strong concentration of people in my age range (25-35), there is a strong sense of isolation and I actually have made fewer friends my own age than I did when I lived in a city much smaller than even London. Part of that is due to the amount of time lost every day commuting. (I live in Toronto only because of the requirements of my job.)

London's size is a clear competitive advantage and nobody needs to sell me on that, nor do officials in any other mid-size Ontario city.

London's problem is that it lacks employment opportunities. And businesses aren't choosing to locate in cities like London.

This is purely anecdotal but the company I work for did a review of its office facilities across Canada a couple of years ago, and as a result multiple offices are moving or are being merged over the next several years. One of the primary criteria used by the company to decide on new office locations was access to public transit and an ability to reduce car dependence for employees. The company will be closing several offices in the next couple years in cities, in this province, identified as having poor public transit and high car dependence. (We have not had a physical presence in London in some time, though I believe we did in the past.) This is and will continue to be what is discussed in corporate boardrooms across Canada, and it's not going to be pretty for cities like London that continue to act like it's 1985.

Again, only one company, but I doubt it's the only one thinking along those terms. How can London even compete for new business when national companies are thinking that way?

[jammer139]

would agree London has many advantages. The job sector is pretty much Education and Health. Right now the area that has the most energy is Video and Gaming tech jobs. The city and the economic development office need to be pushing this much harder. Fanshawe should be developing programs tailored to the tech skills these companies need. Landlords need to be renovating interesting buildings that attract these employers.

[database]

Originally Posted by jammer139

would agree London has many advantages. The job sector is pretty much Education and Health. Right now the area that has the most energy is Video and Gaming tech jobs. The city and the economic development office need to be pushing this much harder. Fanshawe should be developing programs tailored to the tech skills these companies need. Landlords need to be renovating interesting buildings that attract these employers.

I think London is doing this? Maybe not as aggressively as they should be, but Fanshawe has been great about developing programming that dovetails nicely with the city's emerging industries. The Kingsmills campus is meant to host their IT dept for this reason. It'll sit across the street from the Digital and Performance Arts campus, which I think aligns with this sector as well.

I'd also say we're seeing a lot of pretty cool buildings being repurposed and reimagined for new businesses: the London Roundhouse, the Cube, Info-Tech's building, and the Normal School all come to mind. Heck, even our ol' buddy Farhi renovated some of his floor space in the Bell building for Voices.com

My two cents anyway.