As Port Moody council and a consortium of property owners and developers work to find a common vision for the city’s commercial core adjacent to the Moody Centre SkyTrain station, businesses already in the area are dealing with the stress of an uncertain future.
Some are already looking for a new home.
Others are resigned to their fate and will deal with it when it comes.
And at least one sees the massive redevelopment plan for the transit-oriented development (TOD) area as an opportunity and hopes to be a part of it.
Jan Voss started his traffic engineering firm, Creative Transportation Solutions (CTS), in the basement of his Port Moody home, then expanded to office space nearby in 1999 because he liked being able to walk to work.
But with the building his firm currently occupies on Spring Street, next to the SkyTrain station at the western edge of the 23 acres designated for redevelopment, Voss said the lifestyle choice he made so many years ago will likely be compromised.
In fact, Voss said he is already casting about for a new location. He has secured 4,000 sq. ft. of warehouse space in Port Coquitlam to store his company’s fleet of six vehicles and other related equipment. But where his office ends up will have a profound effect on his 12 full-time employees and 10 part-timers, many of whom walk to work like himself, cycle or take transit.
“Employees like to know where their office is going to be,” Voss said, adding his search is complicated by a lack of sufficient office space in Port Moody and low vacancy rates in neighbouring communities. “It creates an unwanted amount of unrest with no end in sight.”
Alex Kuenzig of Port Moody Collision and Paint on Spring Street said he knows there won’t be a place for his garage amidst the conceptual renderings of sleek towers, pocket parks and public plazas being pitched by the consortium. But he’s trying not to stress about it.
“I’m just dealing with it on a day-to-day basis,” said Kuenzig, who has run his shop, with three other employees, for 13 years.
In fact, he said he recently signed a three-year lease with his landlord, which happens to be one of the developers that is a part of the consortium mapping a possible future for the neighbourhood. That’s better than the month-to-month arrangement he had had, Kuenzig said.
That longer-term play is good news for Fraser Mills Fermentation, a craft brewery that’s under construction on St. Johns Street between Williams Street and Electronic Avenue.
Tim Vandergrift, one of the partners, said while the brewery has always anticipated a move to the property of the former Fraser lumber mill site in Coquitlam as it is redeveloped, he also hopes it can be a part of Port Moody’s new commercial centre.
“There will be commercial space and light industrial space,” Vandergrift said of his examination of early plans presented by the consortium at a series of open houses, as well as the city’s wish list for the redevelopment project. “There’s every chance we could stay there. We’d love to stick there.”
Vandergrift said he’s confident his new brewery will be able to survive — and even thrive — amidst that change by building a strong sense of community around the venture, a process that’s already begun with the recent launch of its Pioneers Club membership program.
“Changes like this are changes,” he said. “They’re not necessarily an ending.”
Voss said that’s not likely in the cards for his company. He added he’s stung by the irony that the city wants “high-value” employment opportunities created in the new neighbourhood, which is exactly what CTS has, but the process of creating that neighbourhood is forcing him out.
“We’ve resigned ourselves to move,” he said, adding that could happen as soon as this summer or as late as three years down the road. “Change is happening.”
