Saturday, 31 January 2015

Modern Embro office / retail location abounds in possibilities

Bring your venture to versatile village commercial property

Over 2300 square feet and vacant now for your ideas

By Mark Schadenberg

123 Huron Street, Embro
MLS: 74296 & 74297
Asking Price: $285,000
Zoning: Village (V)
 
EMBRO – It could be your home, or your office, your studio, or a work-at-home commercial venture, or an income property.
This 2,300 square foot fully-modern Embro building in a very visible location, would be ideal for an rural-like office for an accountant, lawyer, dentist or physio-therapist, would be terrific for a bakery, dance studio or artist residence, or could be sub-divided into two separate offices.
With its accessible ramp entrance (Pictured below), there are so many possibilities.
The building is also vacant now for your immediate possession.
As a previous vet clinic, the layout includes more than a dozen rooms, but if you remove a few walls, a very open concept could be the result. 
For the right buyer, a wonderful Embro commercial opportunity exists in purchasing this one-level (there is also almost a full unfinished basement with a rough-in for a bathroom if residential space was part of your consideration) office building at the important hub corner of Huron (County Rd 6) and Commissioners streets. I think it's a significant location for this village for prominence because Commissioners street is the road running west to the community centre and arena, including the home of the Highland Games on July 1.


About half the building is an addition in 1996 (with full basement). Steel I-beams create open (unfinished currently) space in the lower level. The above picture depicts only part of the '96 addition section and was the retail space for the previous vet clinic. 
There are essentially 12 rooms, but two showrooms (One is approximately 25' x 23', while the other is 22' x 20'), along with 5 examining rooms, 2 offices and a kitchen. Pictured below is the 'open' laboratory area. All the cabinets and counters are staying with the building.

The versatile 'Village' commercial zoning could permit a work-at-home office-type setting or purchase for your own professional use and maybe lease out a portion to another business (With the lab area, you could say there is already 2 kitchens). The current owner would obviously prefer a vet clinic not be operated from the location as Embro Veterinary Services amalgamated its Embro-area clients to nearby locations in Hickson, Tavistock and Dorchester.


The vinyl-sided building (several pictures posted here too) with a newer roof and modern mechanicals, includes a forced air gas furnace, expansive air-exchange system, two breaker panel boxes, and security system.
There's lots of parking too – with 10 spots on site.
Interested buyers can ask about the on-going debenture payment to Zorra township for the previous sewer installation, along with a thorough list of possible inclusions and exclusions.
Don't hesitate to call me today !!

Mark Schadenberg, Sales Representative
Senior Real Estate Specialist (SRES designation)
Royal LePage Triland Realty Brokerage
757 Dundas St, Woodstock
(519) 537-1553, cell or text
Twitter: markroyallepage
Facebook: Mark Schadenberg, Royal LePage Triland

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Thursday, 29 January 2015

Ryley celebrates today - 9 years since heart transplant

Mitchell family continues to promote organ/tissue donation
 
Add your name to registry at www.beadonor.ca
 
By Mark Schadenberg

In the children’s cartoon movies Planes, an ordinary crop-dusting airplane becomes a champion long-distance racing plane and in the sequel a heroic forest fire fighting flyer.
In the real world of Ryley Mitchell of Woodstock, she is everyone’s hero as a champion child after a heart transplant when only 7 months old.
Today (Jan. 29) marks exactly nine years since Ryley received a new heart. Today, she is more than a fighter, she is also a runner and a regular child (if you didn’t know her entire story).
The connection to the movie Planes, is that a group of families, including the Mitchells and Schadenbergs, enjoyed the Planes sequel at a theatre a few months ago. I didn’t know the Mitchells well then, but now just a few months later, the family is one I greatly admire.
Ryley’s parents – Joanna and Jeff, are obviously very proud of their 9-year-old treasure as Ryley has now competed in athletics at the Canadian Transplant Association Games, winning five gold medals (sprinting, ball throw, swimming, bowling), but on a charitable note donated her presents from both her 8th and 9th birthdays to Toronto’s Hospital For Sick Children. Ryley and proud Mom are both spokespersons for organ and tissue donation.
For her public service, Ryley was recognized last September with a province-wide award -- the Thomas Quinet Youth Award, which is named after a young man who had cystic fibrosis and underwent a double lung transplant, but sadly would later die in September of 2011. Quinet’s parents established the award in his memory.
The link to the entire award story published in The Woodstock Sentinel-Review is below, along with other Ryley stories and biographies.
 
Joanna Mitchell is today a public speaker for the donor registry or www.beadonor.ca. Joanna has been the guest speaker at many gatherings and co-organizes a local event to bring more awareness to organ/tissue donation, saying there are about 1,500 people currently in Ontario waiting for an organ and that sadly the unfortunate death of one person could assist up to eight others – heart, liver, lungs, kidney, eyes, etc.
Dilated cardiomyopathy is the diagnosis her parents received when Ryley was only two months old. In a 2005 blog entry (full story below) for the transplant association, Joanna wrote about the initial diagnosis:

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. . . When we arrived in London, our tiny little baby was swarmed by doctors and nurses trying to examine her and get blood. Through all the commotion, I remember seeing one doctor standing in the background holding up the chest x-ray and saying “enlarged heart”. I didn’t really know what that meant, but I knew it sounded bad. A cardiologist ordered an echocardiogram on Ryley and, within an hour of arriving, we had the diagnosis of Dilated Cardiomyopathy. When the heart becomes enlarged, it cannot effectively pump blood to the rest of your body and your other organs start to fill with fluid and shut down. With the severity of Ryley’s enlargement, it seemed a miracle she was still alive. I remember asking the doctor if this meant she was going to die. He said, “No, but she would likely be a candidate for a heart transplant”. . .

. . . when she was 7 months old, we could see she was getting worse and we were given the choice of palliative care (making her comfortable until she passed) or listing her for transplant. The choice was clear. Miraculously, only 10 days after she was listed, Ryley received her gift of life. Eleven days after that, she was discharged from the hospital and hasn’t looked back since. . .

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Ryley Mitchell also has a terrific younger brother Landon. 
I have never asked Ryley’s parents, but according to a 2012 London Free Press story, the woman who would give a heart to Ryley was an anonymous American donor.
Joanna Mitchell has now met many families that have sadly lost a love one, but donated organs / tissues to improve someone else’s life:
"I know someone had to lose their child so mine could live and that's so difficult," she said, in the Free Press article.
Be sure to watch the YouTube clip below as Joanna Mitchell was a recent guest on the Oxford County Rogers TV show Women Of Courage.
If you plan to register, you will need your Ontario Health Card, and a moment to give a hearty 'thumbs up' to Ryley.




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Wednesday, 21 January 2015

The loonie, exports and imports, petroleum, and employment

Maclean's Magazine offers its look at Canada's economic factors of 2015
By Mark Schadenberg
Keeping the parameters as wide as possible, since I’m not an economist, doesn’t it seem to make logical sense that a Canadian dollar below 85 cents versus the American currency is simply too low, and that the Bank Of Canada must make efforts to keep the Loonie in the 90-95 range?
There is also no reason to allow the dollar to ever again grow almost to par with the U.S.
Maclean’s Magazine is looking forward into 2015 and created a list of 35 indicators or charts which Canadian businesses – big and small – and consumers should track.
The Canadian dollar is on that list, but so is imports versus exports, including the important factor of exactly what is Canada exporting? Is our wide array of exports of yesteryear becoming too single-focused on shipping out energy products and in particular petroleum?  One graph in the story notes that for the first time ever the U.S. imports more oil from Canada than the OPEC group.
The Maclean’s writer(s) says it simply: “Putting all our national export eggs in that one basket may prove to be a big mistake.”
Another topic on the list of 35, is will the increase in life expectancy be a significant challenge to healthcare and our pension system?
As the oldest people in the workforce continue to work however, the youngest sector has yet to find its place with high unemployment numbers in the 15-24 age bracket (See charts borrowed from www.macleans.ca, one of which the magazine borrowed in turn from Stats Canada).


 
The link below includes the full list of 35, but the one that jumps out of the magazine for me is the use of temporary foreign employees for many areas of labour and not just agriculture. Again, I am not an economist with expertise in big business and national policies on unemployment and immigration, but there must be a way to have those who are currently unemployed keep the benefits they have earned and are entitled to, and top-up their income with a temporary / seasonal job. In my opinion, that would include seasonal retail jobs too. Correct me if I’m wrong, but that area of employment stats and the issue of foreign workers should be addressed.  
 
LINKS:
http://www.macleans.ca/economy/economicanalysis/the-charts-every-canadian-should-watch-in-2015/
http://www.ctvnews.ca/business/key-interest-rate-unexpectedly-lowered-1.2198493
 
Mark Schadenberg, sales rep
Royal LePage Triland Realty
757 Dundas St, Woodstock
(519) 537-1553 (Call or text)
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Sunday, 18 January 2015

Ingersoll museum assisting to promote provincial curling Tankard

Oscar Judd display among highlights of Ingersoll museum exhibit
Ontario men's curling championships in nearby Dorchester, Feb 2-8
By Mark Schadenberg

INGERSOLL – Sometimes I wish I had maintained a thorough archive, but I didn't.
Could you imagine if I had saved all the nostalgia stories, all the researched biographies on athletes and local sporting folks like Catherine Bond-Mills, Brian Paton, Ed MacQueen, June Bell, Hazel Baynton, Orv Hodgins, John Glassford and the list goes on and on.
Oscar 'Lefty' Judd
What about Ingersoll southpaw hurler Oscar Judd (pictured twice)? Sometime, around 1993 I met him at his house in Ingersoll and we chatted baseball for more than two hours. Judd pitched in the majors and is considered a sporting icon in Ingersoll and was inducted into the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame (in St Marys) in 1986.
Born Feb. 14, 1908, Judd would pass away Dec. 27, 1995.
 
I was sports editor of the Woodstock Sentinel-Review from 1992-98 – seven years – and wrote a feature story on him covering his greatest moments and thoughts as a member of the Brantford Red Sox, Philadelphia Phillies, and the InterCounty leagues. Judd's best season was 1943 with Boston as he went 11-6 with a 2.90 ERA in 23 appearances (20 starts). Lefty Judd also was 11-12 with the Phillies in 1946, and posted an overall career mark of 40-51.
While I will not be making a phone call, I would hope a 'head-and-shoulders' picture of Judd is still on file at the S-R, but I have no idea if they have maintained any filing cabinets. When I was there, we stored olde photos on 'Zip' discs but that too is now old technology.
Why I'm a writing about Judd today?
The town of Ingersoll – read the links below – is recognizing many of its top athletes at a museum (Ingersoll Cheese & Agricultural Museum) display, until April 18. Ingersoll has a rich sports history and next month the Ingersoll & District curling club is hosting the provincial men's curling finals known as The Tankard.
Curling
The main reason sports is on the minds of all residents of the Ingersoll area is that the town's curling club is the official host for the Ontario men's curling championships, Feb 2-8 in Dorchester. The 11-team event is slated for Dorchester (Thames Centre) as that municipality has a twin-pad arena including one with very modern ice-making equipment (at the Flight Exec Centre complex) as needed to convert hockey ice to four curling sheets.
The 'Clash On The Thames' finals will be broadcast on Sportsnet at 12:30 on Sunday, Feb 8, while many of the round robin draws and earlier page-playoff-format games will be aired live on Rogers (Cogeco too) around the province.
 
The field for the Dorchester event is beginning to take shape as defending champ Greg Balsdon will be joined by (pictured) Mark Kean (Innerkip / Woodstock despite many placing him in Toronto or even Stoney Creek areas), John Epping, Joe Frans, Ian MacAulay, Cory Heggestad, plus Jon St Denis, Colin Dow, and finally rising star Aaron Squires of Kitchener.
The Dow team includes Tankard veteran John Steski, and Dow himself has previously competed at the provincials including a stint on Bryan Cochrane's quartet.
Squires, who is actually from St Thomas, is moving up the rankings quickly as a previous Ontario junior champion and also known for OUA success as skip (CIS bronze in 2014) of the Laurier Golden Hawks. Squires was the team which beat Glenn Howard 8-4 at regionals to force the legendary 8-time consecutive Ontario champ Howard to compete in the challenge round. At the national junior championships, Squires went 5-1 in round robin, but would eventually finish fourth overall.
 
The field will be completed this weekend (Feb 16-18) with the challenge round bonspiel granting the last two spots and the likes of Glenn Howard, Wayne Middaugh, Rob Rumfeldt, Rob Lobel, Pat Ferris, Brent Ross, Wayne Tuck and others all battling in Bradford.
Just last year (2014), the Woodstock Museum recognized 100 years of the Perry Street Arena (It had opened in 1914) and the Winter Olympics by hosting an exhibit detailing area winter sports history.



LINKS:
Mark Schadenberg, Sales Representative
Senior Real Estate Specialist (SRES designation)
Royal LePage Triland Realty
757 Dundas St, Woodstock
(519) 537-1553, cell or text
Twitter: markroyallepage
Facebook: Mark Schadenberg, Royal LePage Triland
Discussion . . . Direction . . . Determination . . . Destination
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Wednesday, 14 January 2015

Woodstock continues to attract new business

Optimism abounds for 2015 after a good year in 2014
By Mark Schadenberg

Their job is not easy as their mandate is to attract new business and assist companies in expansion plans locally as well
The office of the development commissioner in Woodstock reports good news as they look back to 2014 and report a healthy prognosis for 2015.
Development commissioner Len Magyar (right in photo) and development officer Brad Hammond (left) are always busy promoting Woodstock as a destination to set up your business, relocate to the 401-403 crossroads in the centre of Oxford County and the centre of southern Ontario.
Woodstock is a great place to call home as a place to live and a place to do business.
 
Brad Hammond is pleased with the stats for last year in both the industrial and residential sectors of growth in Woodstock.  
“Woodstock had a very good year in 2014 in terms of new construction, with more than $98.4 million in activity,” said Hammond via an email. “While values in this range have become the norm in recent years, it is important to remember that prior to Toyota and Sysco (and many other notable developments in the community) Woodstock typically saw only $40 million in new construction in an average year.
“The 2014 figure is dominated by the residential sector ($65.3 million) which saw permits issued for 165 single family homes, 14 semis, 7 apartments and 16 row houses.”
Everything is connected as new homes and certainly re-sale homes were partially purchased by employees of new and expanded companies in Woodstock.
Hammond's discussion and comments about building permits and construction dominated mostly on expansions and additions at companies already in Woodstock.
“On the industrial side Woodstock welcomed WSL Inc. and Trans-Mit Steel, and saw sizable expansions underway at Steel Technologies, Vuteq, Toyota and North American Stamping Group.
“While it is often difficult to predict what the future might hold, particularly in volatile economic and geopolitical times, Woodstock has a great deal for which to be optimistic. We have an unparalleled location, a strong labour force, and a business environment that favours success. Based on recent history we should expect to see continued expansions at our local companies and the addition of new businesses to the community,” commented Hammond.
I'm thinking that Vuteq has its fourth addition currently under construction in the Parkinson Road / Keyes Drive / Longworth Lane area.
The City staffers continue to be innovative and brilliant at the same time. I'm not saying that with a stick of butter in my palms, but Woodstock has been keen in buying future development land for industry and commerce. While not all the acreage is shovel-ready, if someone wanted to buy 75 acres, Woodstock has it in its own inventory which assists in controlling prices versus what a speculator may demand.

At the same time, this extra 'farmland' is rented out to farmers. The former Griffin farm (see graphic), for example, is 75 acres on Devonshire Avenue near the Toyota plant and any farmer with significant interest in cash crops within 15 km of that site would leap at the opportunity to add it to their short-term rented inventory. Equally, any large corporation would also keep an eye on a land piece of that size and with its proximity to Toyota and the 403/403 corridor to plan on locating a factory at that destination.
 

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From The Woodstock Sentinel-Review in February of 2014:
At the an annual conference held by the Economic Developers Council of Ontario, Woodstock's economic development department took home the top prize in the website category for www.cometothecrossroads.com and received honourable mention for its rebranding efforts.
"It is a real honour when it is your peers that select you to win an award," City of Woodstock economic development officer Brad Hammond said.
"It is a group of people that all do marketing, specifically the marketing of a place like a community, so they all know a fair bit about it and when they give you the nod, it really means something."

Contact today:
Brad Hammond, 519 539-2382, x2113
Len Magyar, 519 539-2382, x2112


LINKS:
www.cometothecrossroads.com
http://www.cityofwoodstock.ca/en/News/index.aspx?feedId=037e2ad3-025b-4f72-b3a6-3f8ce0e1dc81&newsId=2f1f4b5f-a668-48fb-8293-635a51a743c9
http://www.woodstocksentinelreview.com/2015/01/13/regional-economic-group-refocuses
http://www.woodstocksentinelreview.com/2015/01/08/prices-for-farmland-levelling-off
http://www.cityofwoodstock.ca/en/doing-business-in-woodstock/bids-and-tenders.asp
http://www.woodstocksentinelreview.com/2014/02/12/woodstocks-economic-development-department-recognized-at-provincial-conference
Mark Schadenberg, Sales Representative
Senior Real Estate Specialist (SRES designation)
Royal LePage Triland Realty
(519) 537-1553, cell or text
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Tuesday, 13 January 2015

Royal LePage Triland finds a new London home

Former railway roundhouse is hub for proposed 3-phase project
ROYAL LEPAGE Triland to relocate its London south office, currently on Wellington

By Mark Schadenberg
LONDON – I've followed the development or re-development of the so-called SoHo neighbourhood of London in previous posts. It was therefore great to see a personal connection to the news of a Horton Street project having a direct parallel to Royal LePage.
At our Royal LePage Triland 2015 kickoff breakfast and meeting on Monday morn it was officially announced that in less than two years, the Triland London (south) office (334 Wellington South) will be relocating to this more central Horton location (at Waterloo Street) currently undergoing a massive facelift with the refurbishing of the (Great Western Railway locomotive) Roundhouse, along with a proposed (as high as) 25-storey residential and office structure. The tech community (rTraction and Neilson IT Consulting) have committed to apparently also be involved as far as tenant businesses focusing on both the Roundhouse (built in 1880's) and adjoining construction projects.
In recent years previously, this railway turntable had been used as a steak house restaurant for more than 30 years, but previous London Free Press stories note it's been essentially vacant since 2006.
The stakes are high now (25 storeys) as the builders focus on converting placards on easels into concrete, mortar, drywall and steel beams.
Peter Meyer and Peter Hoffman (brokers) of Royal LePage Triland conducted a news conference on Monday to unveil their plans.
Creative Property Developments (London property investors led by veteran London-area builder / developers Slavko Prtenjaca and Patrick Ambrogio) is the consortium steering the project.
 
 
 
If you go by the real estate adage of 'location, location, location', this Horton Street locale is ideal as London's next major development area is the nearby SoHo properties, which included the old South Street Hospital demolition site and a proposed new look along the Thames River.
Royal LePage Triland will be one of the additional main tenants (read links below), which will in the long run assist in attracting more businesses to this complex. In commercial real estate, good news is the catalyst for even more interest in a growth area.
The Creative Property group also has a well-established spokesperson for the project in former London mayoral candidate and 10-year city council member Roger Caranci, who is also a Realtor with Royal LePage Triland.
Not far away to the west and still south of the train underpass is a section of Wellington which already has been gradually transformed in recent years as a gateway to the downtown core. First impressions are integral, and I like what I am seeing.
 
LINKS:

Older Stories:

I've been a successful Woodstock Realtor for Royal LePage since 1999
Mark Schadenberg, Sales Representative
Senior Real Estate Specialist (SRES designation)
Royal LePage Triland Realty
757 Dundas St, Woodstock
(519) 537-1553, cell or text
Facebook: Mark Schadenberg, Royal LePage Triland
Discussion . . . Direction . . . Determination . . . Destination

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Monday, 12 January 2015

Hockey, poutine, toques & Gowan

TSN sets audience record during world junior hockey championships
By Mark Schadenberg

Canada is all a-boot hockey and poutine! Right? Wrong?
There are many other unique traditions, sayings, appetites, and other preferences which make Canucks genuinely Canadian. A knitted winter hat, for example, is a toque.
As a sports fan, there are also some traits of spillage from the U.S., which I don’t like. For example, Canadian university sports (I realize the top-end athletes are in the U.S. on attractive scholarships) receive almost zero press, but the NCAA basketball tournament and its brackets are followed by many. Today, is the U.S. college football final, but I prefer the Vanier Cup in November.
Canada loves hockey and the championship game of the world juniors set a new record for viewership on a specialty channel with 7.3 million calculated viewers (story link below).
“Team Canada’s gold medal performance at the World Juniors has once again inspired fans across the country, and this massive audience demonstrates that fan engagement in the tournament has reached staggering new heights,” said Stewart Johnston, President of TSN. “Everyone at TSN is so proud to showcase the drama and excitement of this incredible tournament for viewers in Canada and around the world.”


Canada is about wearing a toque and shovelling snow, but in the summer it’s about camping and enjoying the great outdoors.
There’s a Reader’s Digest link below which discusses Canadian traits, sayings and menu choices.
Canada has very unique heroes and many are specific to our country led by Terry Fox, but also including Paul Henderson, Chris Hadfield, Roberta Bondar (pictured), Romeo Dallaire, and Rick Hansen.
 We have significant historic figures, which do not get the fame they deserve. For example, this past weekend was Sir John A Macdonald's 200th birthday (See previous post). 
There are many recording artists who are hugely popular in the northland, and not so much in the U.S. On that list, I would lead off with Roch Voisine, but I would also continue scribbling out names such as Lawrence Gowan, Rankin Family, Terri Clark, Jann Arden and Bruce Cockburn.  

Canada has better beer and a much better healthcare system than the U.S. Take it from someone who has had a hip replacement due to deteriorating quality of life. Would I have been able to afford that surgery if I lived in the U.S.?
On a related matter, I am bewildered when folks on Facebook chat about how much they saved and how many dollars they spent on a holiday shopping trip to Buffalo or the Port Huron area. Everyone takes trips to the U.S. and I’m on that list, (Burch Run and Frankenmuth) but since a vast majority of our population lives so close to the border, it seems ‘Canadian’ to invest in the U.S. economy. Let’s spend locally – and when I say locally, I mean in Oxford County.
I love Canada. I love the diversity from coast-to-coast. I enjoy poutine and prefer the CFL to the NFL. I watch Corner Gas in re-runs and admit to reluctantly not jumping on its bandwagon when it was in first run.
Canadians could almost support an all-curling TV network, but having said that it’s not easy to get Canadians to attend sporting events in gigantic numbers like 100,000 would flock to a college football game in Michigan, but 4,000 attend a Mustangs football game in London. Curling – to complete my thought – has evolved into being a made-for-TV event unless it’s the national men’s playoffs at The Brier.
Some things we may think are predominately Canadian, are not really. Smarties are great chocolate candy not for sale in the U.S., but you can find the Nestle product in many countries, according to Wikipedia -- United Kingdom,  Australia, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Germany, Netherlands,  France, Italy, Greece, the Nordic countries, and South Africa.
Canadians are a hearty group by personality, and while walking through a large group our favourite sayings are ‘Sorry’ and ‘Excuse Me’.
Instead of writing more, it’s time to insert my ear buds, turn on my Ipod, and listen to Ian Thomas, April Wine or Trooper.
Later on, I’m watching the Leafs game -- a road game tonight from the hockey hotbed of Los Angeles.


LINKS:

Mark Schadenberg, sales representative

Royal LePage Triland Realty Brokerage

757 Dundas St, Woodstock

(519) 537-1553

Email: mschadenberg@rogers.com

Twitter: markroyallepage

Facebook: Mark Schadenberg, Royal LePage Triland
Discussion . . . Direction . . . Determination . . . Destination
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