BCBusiness

November/December 2020 – The Innovators

With a mission to inform, empower, celebrate and advocate for British Columbia's current and aspiring business leaders, BCBusiness go behind the headlines and bring readers face to face with the key issues and people driving business in B.C.

Issue link: http://digital.canadawide.com/i/1313659

Contents of this Issue

Navigation

Page 13 of 63

14 BCBUSINESS NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2020 READ THIS Just 35 percent of U.S. workers are engaged in their jobs, according to a 2019 Gallup survey. In Shapers: Reinvent the Way You Work and Change the Future, Vancouver-based speaker, writer and entrepreneur Jonas Altman argues that our system of work needs an upgrade for the innovation economy. Like a surfboard shaper who views their work as a calling, Altman says, professionals and organizations can bring new meaning, energy and empowerment to what they do for a living. For employees and managers, the book explores better ways of getting the job done, from trust-based leadership to a more fluid kind of teamwork. Wiley 314 pages, hardcover, $28 • ( the informer ) G O F I G U R E "When MEC moved to Cam- bie Street [at West 8th Avenue in the 1980s], it was for sure a destination," retail analyst David Ian Gray of Vancouver- based DIG360 Consulting notes. "People would really journey to get to it." Now technical sports clothing and gear is more widely available: online, in the manufacturers' outlet stores, at MEC's own satellite outlets in North Vancouver and Langley and at flashy newcom- ers like Toronto-based Sporting Life in Burnaby. That's part of the problem that saw the cooperative's board accept a rescue package from Los Angeles–based Kings- wood Capital Management in September—a regime change confirmed over the objections of many co-op members in B.C. Supreme Court on October 2. " MEC itself has some tough work ahead to rebuild the brand and get back to profit- ability, or a surplus," Gray adds, referring to the co-op's $11.5-million loss on sales of $462 million in its most recent fiscal year. In a summer when, stuck for other vacation op- tions, seemingly everyone went camping, the new Vancouver store sold out of fuel and de- hydrated dinner packs in ad- vance of the B.C. Day weekend, leaving members hungry and muttering the disparaging old nickname, "Out-of-equipment Co-op." (In an email, MEC at- tributed its supply disruption issues to "the unusually high demand for outdoor apparel and gear earlier in the season.") Which brings us to the wild card: COVID-19. Independent retailers of all kinds are scram- bling to stay afloat during the pandemic. Gray expects most of those left on outdoor alley to wait and see before they break camp on Broadway and commit to pricier space near False Creek. "There are bigger things at play than where MEC is locat- ed," agrees Mike Hodge, princi- pal, retail, with commercial real estate agency Avison Young. In addition to the pandemic, longer-term, the SkyTrain ex- tension along Broadway will almost certainly come with a new community plan and higher-density redevelopment. That would likely have made Broadway less hospitable for small, destination retailers even if MEC was still there, he says. Hodge uses the example of the onetime furniture store cluster on South Granville that has largely been dispersed by urban renewal, giving rise to smaller clusters in Gastown and the Armory district. "Re- tailers are still lemmings; they still like to be in a cluster with their user group," he concedes. "But market conditions dictate where those clusters have to go." Hodge could foresee some outdoor stores along Broadway holding on until redevelopment comes, while others shutter. Still others might opt for com- bined retail/production space in nearby Mount Pleasant. Taiga Works, for one, has closed its store and operated out of its East Vancouver pro- duction space since COVID-19 hit. Eco Outdoor Sports, which has other locations plus an e-commerce channel, shut its Broadway store when its lease expired, around the time the pandemic was declared. Valhalla Pure Outfitters closed down for two months, then re- opened to roaring business this summer, says owner Richard Harley. "We're doing fine, thank you very much," he quips, noting that Valhalla operates 12 stores in B.C. and Alberta, most of them nowhere near a MEC outlet. In some respects, small stores are better able to cope with change than big ones like MEC, Harley adds. "We respond as we know how, which is to fill our stores with things people want to buy," he says. In fact, Valhalla benefited from MEC's summer stocking problems as some customers made the hike back up the hill to Broad- way to find food and fuel, Harley explains. "We are destination stores. People will search us out." • Good Neighbours Working remotely has been...interesting, but there's nothing like proximity for boosting innovation. Here are a few ways B.C. is coming together to create some economic chemistry by Melissa Edwards 2/5 Recommendations in a recent report from B.C.'s innovation commissioner that relate to developing regional innovation precincts and tech clusters 8 Official "innovation economy" clusters in the City of Vancouver There are 105,000 jobs in Vancouver's Broadway corridor, according to a 2019 KPMG study 9.5% of Metro Vancouver employment $15.5 billion in direct annual economic output Broadway is the No. 1 busiest bus route in Canada and the U.S., and the province's most densely developed corridor not served by rapid transit 100,000+ bus trips daily (pre-COVID) 255% expected increase in capacity once the Broadway transit line is running $17 million Provincial investment to create a Quantum Algorithms Institute at SFU Surrey campus, the first step in a proposed quantum computing innovation corridor reaching into the Fraser Valley

Articles in this issue

Archives of this issue

view archives of BCBusiness - November/December 2020 – The Innovators