There has been a colourful addition to the Tyee Plaza. The four brightly coloured boxcar-like units are a remembrance of Campbell River’s old logging railroads. They are also part of an innovative project designed to help cottage industries make the transition to brick and mortar stores. The Rail Yard Market, at1235 Shoppers Row, has been open for about 3 months.
“The project is fantastic. I think it gives little entrepreneurs like myself and the rest of my pod mates here a fantastic opportunity. We’re allowed to be here for up to three years at a time and the city also provides business initiatives like marketing and online resources. They’re putting us into a course right now. We’ve done two days in October and we’ll probably do another two days in November. It gives us a lot of help to survive today’s economy and a leg up on what to expect when we get to a real brick and mortar. I think we can be a success and I’m hoping that they’ll open more,” said Tina from Maggie’s treats. “I think the Mayor had a real winner with this one.”
Cortes Currents: Whose idea was this?
Tina: “It was the Mayor Kermit Dahl’s idea. Mayor Kermit Dahl was actually my first sale as well. He doesn’t own a dog, he bought a bag of dog treats for his neighbour.”
Rose Klukas, Director of Economic Development for the city of Campbell River explained, “It came together in maybe a roundabout way. On an annual basis, the provincial government makes available a grant to communities and particularly communities that have a strong connection to a resource sector, in this case forestry, which have been impacted by change. They make grant funding available through a REDIP (Rural Economic Diversification and Infrastructure Program) grant. It’s a way for communities to try to diversify their local economy.”
“Simultaneously, we had a practically brand new mayor at the time. Kermit Dahl came with an idea that we should be looking for opportunities to grow businesses in Campbell River. He had seen various examples of this, including in Langford, and asked the Economic Development department to figure out a way to replicate that model here in Campbell River as a way to support the growth.”
“One of the challenges that businesses have today is that starting up is expensive. Rents in British Columbia are expensive and so this is a way to allow businesses to get their roots grown and hopefully move on from these units into more traditional bricks and mortar down the road.”
Cortes Currents: Tell me how you went from an idea to opening the doors to those four businesses?
Rose Klukas: “Very quickly, which is the case from almost anything you do in Economic Development. We had two or three weeks to flesh out the concept and get the application in by the deadline. All this was happening over Christmas and then we had to wait for approval of the grant, which we weren’t guaranteed for sure. During that waiting period, we gave some more thought to what this program could look like. We’re not inventing the wheel. We connected with other communities, to learn from them. What are some best practices? What could they have done differently? Or what should they have done differently?
“I think it was probably in March or April that we were approved for the grant.”
The Rail Yard Market officially opened on September 13th, but as you will soon hear, some of the stories have been there since the end of July. Maggie’s Treats, the Tin Can Pottery Shop, and the Mossy Coast and Sinfully Delicious each rent an 8 by 20 foot module.
Tina: “I make all natural dog treats: single or very limited ingredients; No additives; no preservatives. I want to know what goes in my dog’s mouth, as I’m sure other dog owners want to know as well. Being in this store has opened up so many possibilities. I used to do markets for the last three years. This would have been the third year, before I got into here. The sales volume has been phenomenal. Now my regulars can come to me whenever they want to and once the market ends, they still have a place to go. I’ve picked up a lot of business here in town.”
Cortes Currents: What kind of a volume do you get for dog treats?
Tina: “Last year I had $4,000 in sales. This time this year, I have $15,000 in sales. In the last three months, $7,469.79.
On the wall behind her till, there’s a photograph of a little pug-French bulldog mix standing on the beach.
Tina: “The dog is Maggie. This is why I started this business. I wanted to know what I put into her mouth, and where it came from. We got Maggie in 2018. She’s going to be 6 this year, but I had a hard time finding a treat she would actually eat . She’d eat the beef liver from the vet and I could buy beef liver for her, but it’s expensive.”
“I thought, ‘okay, if somebody else can do it, I can do it.’ So I started making the beef liver, and then I started with pork and chicken, and then I branched out into my own little creations, which are what I call finger biters. I make pork and blueberries, pork and pumpkin, burger and fries. Everything in the store is Maggie approved except for the tater chips. She doesn’t like the sweet potato chips at all, but everything else she will eat.”
“One of the things we make sure of here at Maggie’s Treats is that all of our treats are affordable. We want to enable anybody who has a dog, no matter what price point they have, to buy a bag of treats.”
Cortes Currents: Give me an example from the rack in front of me.
Tina: “Okay. So, let’s take beef liver. You walk into any pet store and 100 grams of beef liver is going to cost you about $15- $16. Mine’s $11. Chicken: most chicken is about $20 for 85 grams. Mine’s $14 for 100 grams.”
The next storekeeper Cortes Currents approached was Jennifer, from Sinfully Delicious Cake Pops And Chocolate Treats.
Jennifer: “I wouldn’t be here without my daughter, Lydia. She’s the brains of the business. She’s 10 years old and she came up with this idea when she was 7. It was when COVID was going on. She was looking at birthday parties and nobody had a cake. So she was like, ‘Oh, it’d be such a good idea to do individually wrapped cake pops, mom.’ So we started making and selling them. It’s been going wonderfully. We started making other treats: hot chocolate bombs, chocolate goodies, salty caramels, peanut butter bars and everything.”
Lydia added, “I love that we have a store.”
Cortes Currents: How long have you been working from here?
Jennifer: “I’ve been working from the shop here since the end of July, and I’ve been doing it at home for about three years now.”
Cortes Currents: What kind of a difference do you notice working in this location?
Jennifer: “There’s definitely more traffic, lots more people with special orders and more publicity. More people know about us now.”
Cortes Currents: Do you plan to be here for three years?
Jennifer: “We’re definitely doing the one year lease, and then we’ll see where things are.”
Emma from Tin Can Pottery is abroad right now and her friend Barbara is working in the store.
Barbara: “Emma and I are both members of the Comox Valley Potters Club. She ideally would like to have a communal pottery club in the Comox Valley, Campbell River, or somewhere in the middle, because there’s nothing like that in this area.”
“Pretty much every other city in North America has a communal pottery club and this one doesn’t. Emma’s goal is to find a space and build a real pottery club so everybody can participate, have classes and a little shop. Pottery has become very huge in the past several years and I get phone calls every day from people looking for classes. There are basically two in the whole area, but no clubs.”
“We carry 10 artisans from Mid Island, basically Comox Valley, up. We have different things. There’s a woman who does her own wool dyeing, another woman looms yarn. There are several potters and jewelry makers.”
One of the potters is using mitochondria in her designs?
Barbara: “Emma, the shop owner, is a big fan of mushrooms, fungi and she loves mitochondria. She’s created a line of bowls that include her interpretation of mitochondria. She’s done a line of pottery based on fungi.”
She pointed to a white pot: “This teapot has all kinds of different – I can’t remember the name of the mushroom – growing out of it, with the little matching bowls. It’s her passion right now and it’s really interesting to see her bring the environment into her work.”
Cortes Currents: Tell me about your pottery.
Barbara: “I’ve been doing pottery on and off as a hobbyist for about 10 years and it’s my meditation. It keeps me grounded. It keeps me busy. It keeps me out of trouble basically.”
While we were talking, one of the other artists walked into Tin Can Pottery.
“My name’s Robert Aden,” he began. “I paint local Campbell River scenes. I have a line of cards in the Tin Can Pottery Shop here on Shopper’s Row and I have it in several other stores around town too. Some of my prints are on the wall.”
Cortes Currents: What kind of difference has displaying in Tin Can Pottery meant to your business?
Robert Arden: “It’s relatively early because she’s only stocked my stuff here for a month and a half, but I think this thing will take off really well. It’s where the Sunday Market is in the summer. So that’s going to be really good foot traffic. It’s set up so nicely. There’s four little shops close together. You park right there. I think it will do well.
Mossy Coast was not open when i visited, but subsequently emailed, “The Rail Yard has been quite the experience for us and our business! We have learned so much about our community and we have met so many wonderful people. Previously we have only had a presence at markets up and down the island. Having a permanent presence in our hometown has been such a blessing and a learning experience for us. Summer was lovely in terms of sales especially with the Sunday market situated in front of our shops! We are excited and looking forward to this Holiday season!”
There are numerous examples of their clothing
“We collect and forage plants, animal prints, fish and unique logs on our adventures. We then paint the object and hand press it onto each individual t-shirt. Everything hand-stamped and one of a kind!”
The city charges each of the four shops in Rail Yard Market $400 a month for rent. Rose Klukas wasn’t sure what it would be in a more typical downtown location, but guesstimated may be as much as $2,000.
Rose Klukas: “After three years they have to move on into a traditional bricks and mortar or another way of operating because we believe that during that time frame they’ve either proved their concept and are able to make it alongside traditional business models, or they’re not going to.”
“We will have a continuous intake. So we have quite a bit of interest. As people leave the units, we’ll have them fill up with new businesses.”
Cortes Currents: Is this an experiment or do you see this going on for years?
Rose Klukas: “It is not an experiment. We hope this to be part of our offering from economic development because that business Incubator model should be sustainable. It is new to us and I think we may have to refine some of the programming.
“One of our unique attributes, compared to other communities that offer similar models, is that we require our tenants to take a business development course. What we realize is a lot of people have great business ideas and not necessarily great business acumen. So to add to the possibility of success, we’re making them do these business development training courses as well.”
Cortes Currents: Do you have any statistics for the success rate of businesses transitioning from cottage industries to stores?
Rose Klukas: “I don’t have any stats. Having said that, anecdotally, other communities have given us examples of businesses that were able to really grow in their communities because they were given this opportunity.”
Cortes Currents: I thought it was a good idea. That’s why I wanted to do the story.
Rose Klukas: “It’s a great idea. We were thankful the mayor brought it to our attention. Of course, we’ve always considered that whole business development incubator model. We probably thought of it like, ‘do we have a building somewhere where we can create this market space.’ The idea of putting these units in our downtown really has been great. I will also say, for people who haven’t seen them, they’re brightly coloured. They are also intended to add some more foot traffic to our downtown and bring more traffic to other businesses in the vicinity as well.
“We’ve had a lot of people asking us if we’re going to expand the project and add more units downtown.”
“We’ve been very happy with the feedback we’ve received from the public and from Campbell Riverites, who I guess have also seen the value in the project. At this point, we don’t have plans to add more units in that area itself. We may add some amenities in the area to dress it up a little bit and per offer, maybe some seating and so forth.”
It’s been a big undertaking in a very short period of time. We’re thankful for the grant that allowed us to make this happen and the feedback that we’ve been getting from the businesses in the units is that they’ve also been thankful for an opportunity to grow their businesses.”
Links of interest:
- The Rail Yard Market website
- Maggie’s Treats website,
- Tin Can Pottery Shop Instrgram page,
- Mossy Coast website
- Sinfully Delicious website
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