With Airdrie in the midst of Small Business Week, Marilyne Aalhus, executive director of the Airdrie Chamber of Commerce, said the city is still a welcoming place for small businesses to set up shop.
“Airdrie is a wonderful, growing community,” she said. “From a residential point of view, our city continues to grow at a level not many cities do in our province. That is a success story. We are growing in residents, and that, in turn, is a great model for businesses to attract new clients.”
But it also has brought a lack of affordable storefront real estate, Aalhus added, which makes it harder sometimes for new businesses to establish themselves.
“When you look at lease prices in our city, unfortunately, there is not a lot of older real estate,” she said. “So it is quite costly to do business in Airdrie … There is not a lot of affordable real estate for a city of this size.”
That means, Aalhus noted, that many successful home-based businesses in Airdrie are putting their expansion plans on hold because the overhead on many local storefront property costs are too high for them.
“We have approximately 1,500 storefront businesses, including industrial,” she explained. “And then we have about 2,500 (licensed) home-based businesses that don’t pay into that (business) property tax base. Of course, they do as residents. But if you look at other cities across the province, they do have more storefront to put into that property tax, for sure.”
Despite these real estate-related challenges, Aalhus said Airdrie continues to attract new businesses of various types – largely to service the needs of the city’s rapidly growing population.
“We are still seeing new businesses coming up and opening on a regular basis; although there have been some closures due to COVID,” Aalhus acknowledged. “We are also seeing a lot of innovation, and people are building storefront businesses as well as a lot of home-based businesses continue to be licensed every month.”
Outside of a real estate crunch, Aalhus said local small businesses are finding it a challenge to fill all their staffing needs. She explained that COVID-19 changed the working priorities for many people in the community, and many now prefer to work flexible shift hours instead of committing to specific shift times.
“There is a lot of appetite to live and work in Airdrie, but I am hearing from employers that there is still a struggle to have full time positions filled,” she said. “A lot of people are wanting to be a bit more selective to fulfill that work-life balance. So it is a challenge for a lot of small businesses.”
And while many local businesses came through the pandemic successfully, they often did not come through unscathed.
“There is still a recovery happening,” Aalhus agreed. “There is still a struggle happening for a lot of small businesses who were not profitable for the past few years.”
The chamber exec. stressed the importance of shopping locally – something Small Business Week espouses every year – to support these entrepreneurs’ ongoing recovery in Airdrie.
“We absolutely want people to recognize when you shop local, you are truly investing back into your city,” she stated. “You are investing into the foundation of what makes Airdrie a great city. A healthy business community is a healthy community.”
