Campbell River Rail Yard Market_ 3 months on

Roy L Hales/Cortes Currents - There has been a colourful addition to the Tyee Mall. 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 have cottage industries make the transition to brick and mortar stores. The Rail Yard Market 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, the Mossy Coast and Sinfully Delicious each rent an 8 by 20 foot module.