News from St. Albert Economic Development

July 2013

Focus on Business
in St. Albert

Do the Loop! Tour. Eat. Shop

The Botanical Loop is a new transit route designed especially for tourists. The route connects three key visitor attractions - The Enjoy Centre, Farmers Market and St. Albert Botanic Park. The route will run every Saturday from 9:30 am - 3:30 pm from mid June to mid September. To start in 2013, we will run from August 3- September 14. The project is a partnership between the three attractions along with St. Albert Transit, St. Albert Economic Development and Travel Alberta.

As you stroll through the the Botanic Park your senses will be heightened by the brilliant beauty of indigenous plants and the intoxicating aroma of roses and lilacs and apple blossoms. A favourite experience at the farmers' market is tasting all the one-of-a-kind, home-made goodies and getting freshly squeezed lemonade while you watch street performers and buy unique crafts and organic produce. The state-of-the-art Enjoy Centre is like nothing else in Alberta. This complex is home to the family owned Hole's Greenhouse, along with unique home décor, food and spa facilities. Soaring glass ceilings provide breathtaking views of the prairie sky, making it an amazing venue to have lunch or an inspired day of shopping.

To tie it all together, local storytellers will ride the bus and share funny stories and interesting facts about the Botanical Arts City so that visitors are entertained and want to share their experience with others.

Come out with your family or friends and do the loop. For the schedule and more information visit http://www.stalbert.ca/botanical-loop.

In This Issue

Do the Loop!

Off-Site Levy Information Session

Have you planned your Staycation?

Business Health Challenge #5

Investment Attraction in Action

Business Spotlight

New Businesses in St. Albert

Quarterly Growth Stats

Join the Conversation!

Upcoming Events

As we move into summer, there are no scheduled events.

Off-Site Levy Information Session

The City of St. Albert is hosting an information session to discuss final updates with developers, landowners, and residents on the proposed revisions to the Off-site Levy Bylaw.

The bylaw, which will be presented to Council on August 26, 2013, will set the rates, amounts and obligations between the City and developers. It will also reflect the changed economic condition and strengthened focus on economic development in St. Albert.

"Stakeholder consultation is a critical component to updating the Off-site Levy Bylaw," says Tracy Allen, Director of Engineering, City of St. Albert. "Since 2011, the City has been consulting with other municipalities as well as key industry stakeholders to ensure the revisions to the bylaw support and enhance the City's goal of a competitive investment environment."

An information session will be held Thursday, August 8, 2013 at 3 p.m. in the East Boardroom at St. Albert Place, 5 St. Anne Street. The presentation will include information on rates and infrastructure allocations, affected lands, projects, how levies are calculated, and will be followed by a question and answer period. This session will provide new information not presented at the first information session in March 2013.

Feedback gathered from the information session will be used to finalize the update to the Off-site Levy Bylaw. Interested parties unable to attend the meeting, but who would like to provide comments or have questions, can send a written submission to the City to be received no later than August 16, 2013.

In April 2013, Administration requested that the first reading of the Off-site Levy Bylaw be deferred until August 2013 to address further questions received from impacted parties after a non-statutory public hearing in late March. The City of St. Albert began its comprehensive review in order to update its Off-site Levy processes and bylaw in 2011.

For more information on the City's Off-site Levy process, visit www.stalbert.ca/off-site-levies.

Have you planned your Staycation?

St. Albert is blessed to have a large variety of attractions and activities for both residents and visitors. We have amazing festivals, shopping and dining along with arts, culture, historic and recreation pursuits. Summer can be very busy for many of us but sometimes just kicking back and taking a day for ourselves is not such a bad thing. Plan a "staycation". It's super easy thanks to a new tool the St. Albert Leader has created online. The Staycation Generator randomly connects five activities for you and your family including dining and shopping. Try to complete them in a day or even a weekend if that works better for you.

http://www.stalbertleader.com/staycation/

Business Health Challenge #5

As the owner of your business, it's tempting to get involved in every aspect of or your operations. Of course, if you're a "one-man show", then you must do everything but once you've grown enough to hire staff, take the time to nurture your business, your staff and yourself.

Is doing it all the best use of your time? Reassess what you should be doing in your business. Which tasks to do enjoy and do well? Which ones do you dislike? For example do you love selling but keep procrastinating the bookkeeping and accounting? Maybe now is the time to hire a bookkeeper or assistant to keep track of your account receivables and payables.

Learn to delegate responsibilities to trusted and responsible staff or those that you can hire on a contract basis. Doing it all yourself can lead to personal burnout. Your business itself will be healthier if you can share responsibilities so you can focus on managing it. Additionally, delegating allows your employees to grow in their skills and talents.

How well do you think you are at delegating? A quick tool is available from Mind Tools that can help assess your delegation skills and offers tips on how to improve. Check it out at http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newTMM_60.htm

Challenge # 5 is to complete the Delegation Tool and determine what you can move off your plate so that you can focus on managing your business most effectively.

Investment Attraction in Action

written by Aaron Latimer, Investment Attraction Manager

Economic Development is conducting a Retail Market Analysis that will provide information to the community that will lead to the further development and maturing of the retail industry in the City of St. Albert over the next five years. This document will define our municipality's retail trading area, identify the type of targeted retail companies that will compliment the present retail mix and provide information regarding the leakage of retail dollars outside the community. With the new transportation infrastructure in place and additional plans for further development, St. Albert is experiencing significant interest from the development community.

The Retail Market Analysis will be a key strategic resource document for the development community and the economic development team for the purpose of attracting new commercial investment into the City of St. Albert. The purpose of the study is to:

Determine demand: improve understanding of the retail trade area for existing businesses for their marketing purposes by defining potential locations for development, defining the spending potential of households in St. Albert and setting recruitment targets for retail stores in commercial districts
Determine supply: provide inventory of retail developments outside of St. Albert sharing the same market, and provide inventory of lands ready for new retail and service sector development in St. albert and the square footage required of buildings to support trade activity
Determine gap: improve the understanding of the gaps in provision of goods and services to allow for new or expanding business opportunities by collecting retail sales data for store types, estimating the dollar leakage to Edmonton and surveying the citizens to identify retail gaps so a list of potential retail additions can be submitted

St. Albert's existing commercial corridor "St. Albert Trail" is the city's primary commercial trading area and is considered a vibrant and successful area. However, re-development and revitalization will be a key contributor to the long term vitality of the area. The Retail Market Analysis will provide critical data and analysis to existing land owners, commercial businesses and potential investors on opportunities for re-development, expansion and new business opportunities along the St. Albert trail corridor.

BUSINESS SPOTLIGHT ON... Innovations Music

This month I met with Stan Livingstone, the General Manager at Innovations Music. Innovations Music is a full service music store. They carry all instruments to buy or rent along with all the necessary accessories and production/recording equipment. They also do repairs and maintenance. Innovations Music is a branch of the Visionary family which includes Visionary Entertainment and Visionary College.

2013 marks Innovations Music's 20th anniversary. Stan and his wife started their businesses in the old Grandin Mall Plaza and moved to their current location on St. Albert Trail in 2000. The old adage "Location, Location, Location" has really been true for Stan and his company. Moving to the Trail increased their visibility and traffic and thus their client base.

Stan's company vision has always been to create musicians and help them get onto the world stage. It seems lofty but having a dream and the tenacity to achieve it is what musicians do. To get to the world stage a budding musician needs tools. They need lessons - Visionary College recruits only the best instructors, including internationally acclaimed professionals. They need equipment - Innovations Music sells everything you need but what sets them apart is their staff are musicians too and are interested in your needs not just pushing a commodity. Music stars also need to be seen and heard by their fans -Visionary Entertainment provides staging and equipment needed to thrill an audience.

They have had great success with students moving on to play in symphonies and operas across the country. They've had 3 students get to the top 12 on the YTV hit "the Next Star" and recording artist Marlee Scott is an alumni of Visionary College.

As the corporation continues to grow, Stan wants to make sure they keep the great instructors and service they're famous for. He looks forward to helping their clients shine in front of audiences of 10,000 or more and he wants to be able to help more students reach their goals of musical greatness.