EDITOR,
It is with dismay that I read about the loss of Yiannis, and the string of other businesses that have closed downtown in recent months ("Recent downtown business closures eyed," Chief, July 22).
Recently a longtime client invited me and my family to Campbell River to set up a small home office. I was struck by the beauty of the place, which I had not visited for many years. But more than that, I was impressed by the affordability.
Campbell River is just over twice the size of Squamish, at 32,000 people. Its trading area is almost twice that. Its downtown core is clean and pleasant, if not extravagant. The scenery is outstanding. Given these things, I felt certain the cost of living there would meet or exceed that of Squamish. I was wrong.
Living in Squamish and spending almost 95 per cent of my time here, I think I'd forgotten how life was outside the bubble. You can buy a house in Campbell River for around $250,000 or less. A house! With ocean views! But there was something else that wowed me. Commercial space in much of the downtown there costs almost half what it is compared to here.
This got me thinking about the steady march of businesses I've seen opening and closing downtown. The average lease rate down there is $12 to $14 per square foot, plus triple net. Triple net is your portion of the building's land taxes, insurance and maintenance, and usually adds up to $4 to $5 per square foot or more. This is per annum, so a 1,000-square-foot space at $14 per square foot, with say $4 in triple net, equals $18,000 per year or $1,500 a month. By comparison, many spots in Campbell River could be had for as little as $5 per square foot, with similar triple net. Your monthly lease cost for something like that would be $750 by comparison.
That's a big difference! And $12 to $14 is about as low as it gets in Squamish. Up on the highway, you're looking at closer to $22 plus triple net for ground-floor retail space. In those spaces, rents can hit between $2,000 to $4,000 per month in some cases! I've surveyed space down in the city in areas with much higher traffic, and in a lot of cases they are similar or even cheaper than Squamish!
Why is Squamish so expensive compared to C.R.? Probably high real estate costs, which force landowners to charge higher rents to cover financing costs. These also drive up taxes, which are based on land values. There has been a steady opening of commercial space downtown with vacant spaces sitting empty for months, but I've not seen any movement on lease rates yet.
I've thought many times over the 12 years I've been in business of opening up some space, hiring, etc. But at the end of the day I'm not convinced the math makes it worth it. You have to sell a lot of widgets to cover $1,500 a month, and that's before you factor in hydro, telephone, Internet and even paying yourself, never mind an employee! With such a small and depleted economic base, it's a very dicey proposition. I've watched a steady stream of entrepreneurs trying to make gold out of lead downtown, and closing their doors sometimes in as little as months after starting. It's very sad, but given the cost structure, fairly predictable, too.
I'm not sure Campbell River is much better off economically than Squamish, but when I was downtown there I sensed a vitality that is almost completely lacking here. When I walk around downtown Squamish I feel like I'm in a dead zone. Downtown Campbell River felt alive, vibrant. I'm not saying one community is better than the other, but I do think they planned better. Past councils here paid homage to the downtown but every development or tax decision they made undermined it. I sometimes wonder if past councils didn't deliberately stick the knife into downtown's back. I've heard a few developers (and one or two past councillors) referring to Squamish as the next Carmel, Calif. - an exclusive, gated bedroom community with no economy of its own and no need for one.
We can talk all we want about creating a high-tech community and economic diversification, but as long as it remains prohibitively expensive to live and work in Squamish, people and investment will choose to go elsewhere. We are a beautiful place to live, but we are just one jewel in the dazzling crown that is British Columbia. There are other places in our wonderful province to be, places where the cost of living and doing business isn't so onerous. Campbell River has four times our economic base and half the costs of doing business - that gives it an edge. You can make a go of it in a situation like that; in a way you really can't anymore here. Until we figure out how to make Squamish affordable again, we're going to keep watching that stream of great businesses like Yiannis come and go. Welcome to Carmel North!
Brad Hodge
Brackendale
