The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

PageS8 Whitby Fme Prss, Wednesday, pptember 14, 1994, whit business Home De-pot construction to soon, begin By Mike Kowalski Construction is soon expected to begin on a massive home improvement warehouse in south Whitby. Councillor Ross Batten infor- med Town council Monday that the ground-breaking for the Home Depot warehouse on Vic- toria Street will take place later this month. If all goes according to sche- dule, the retail warehouse outlet will be open for business next June, Batten said. Between 40 and 50 people are expected to be employed by Home Depot, he added. Batten's announcement fol- lowed council approval of Home Depot's site plan application for the 129,257-square foot ware- house on the northeast corner of Victoria Street and Thickson Road South. While council's decision paves the way for Home Depot to go ahead, the other portion of the 22-acre site is still sitting vacant. But that will not be the case for long, Batten noted. Property owner Invar Indus- trial Ltd. bas lined up six more tenants for the site and applica- tions are expected to come before council's planning and develop- ment committee shortly, Batten said. Although he could not disclose the nature of the proposed businesses, Batten said they in- volve a number of commercial uses which would be contained in two buildings adjacent to Home Depot. "We're looking at a variety of uses,"he said. "They'd like te occupy them with Home Depot but we have to proceed with official plan amend- ments first." Last June, Invar submitted rezoning and official plan amend- ment applications for the site that was once intended to be a Price Club warehouse. Invar wanted to increase the size of the property previously approved for retail warehouse uses. But it also wanted the flexibi- lity of building smaller units in addition to one similar in size to the defunct 116,000-square-foot Price Club proposal. However, the committee was unanimous in telling Invar offi- cials their proposal was contrary to council's view of future deve- lopment in that part of Whitby. Batten told reporters that Invar has since backed off its attempt to win aproval for units of less than 20,00 square feet. «We established a minimum of 20,000 square feet," said Batten, the committe chair. "'hey came back and said they will comply with the guidelines in our commercial policy.» Pending committee and council approval of the proposed uses, the final chapter of the contro- versial Invar application may have been written. Last year, amidst opposition from both local and chan store outlets, Whitby and Durham Region councils approved Invar's plan for two retail warehouses. The Price Club, an American- owned food and department store chain which operated on a mem- bership basis, was to have occu- pied one of the buildings. The other was to be an Aiken- head's Home Improvement Warehouse. Together the two unrelated warehouses were expected to create the equivalent of 540 full- time jobs. But following a corporate mer- ger between Price Club and Cos- tco Warehouse Club (a similar American bulk merchandiser), the Price Club component was shelved. Company officials felt a 133,000-square foot Costco outlet in Ajax was sufficient to serve Durham Region. Meanwhie, American retailer Home Depot purchased 75 per cent of Aikenhead's from Molson Companies Ltd. earlier this year. Home Depot is the largest home improvement chain in the United States. Realtors criticalof hiessen'sfght against inflation By Mark Reesor Bank ofrCanada Governor Gor- don Thiessen had some dis- appointing words Thursday for real estate agents hoping for a return to the 'good old days' of hi gbinflation. Thiessen who spoke at the Durham Rteal Estate Board's 40th anniversary celebration Thursday night in Pickering, was asked by a number of ques- tioners why he's worked so hard to fight inflation when it's just what's needed to stimulate hous- ing sales. I find your speech depress- ing " one agent told him. "We real estate agents need tools to sell. «We used to see real estate as (a) hedge against inflation. You're keeping inflation down -- we can't sell real estate to peo le... " n 10 years if we don't seli real estate, they don't buy appliances, they don't buy cars, they don't buy products. "You've got to give us our tools back so we can go out and work WALTER CHAPPELL WELL DRILLING 32 Years experience Licenced by Ministry of Environment * 95~78~342 r 18OO72..5471;: adverlisement Whitby Massage Therapy Clinic Inc. Welcomes Raissa Chernushenko Certif ied Shiatsu Therapist Raissa, a certified therapist has trained at an acredited school for 2,200 hrs. The practice of Shiatsu'involves the application of primarily the thumbs to specific points through a network of channels in the body. Shiatsu therapy helps regulate the flow of energy and bring the body's functions into better balance. Conditions which respond well to Shiatsu treatments are: fatigue, stress, headaches, insomnia, and arthritis. Meet Raisse and see a Shiatsu demonstration at our open house Sunday, October 16th. For an appointment or further information, call 430-2183. Whitby Massage Therapy Clinic Ut 430-2183 and sell our service. There's not enough people wanting our ser- vice and you're holding the keys for it,"-he concluded to an enthu- siastic round of applause. "I absolutely don't believe" high inflation, including infla- tion-related increases in real estate prices, "is sustainable," Thiessen replied. "All you're going to get is a boom and a bust and I ask you is that good for your industry? i don't think it is, because for every good period there is going to be a correspondingbad period. "I think, in balance, low infla- tion is in your interest. Sure it's true that people won't buy houses as a hedge against infla- tion, but they'll buy houses because they'll want to live in them and that strikes me as a far more sustainable base for selling real estate." Thiessen's answer received polite applause, but apparently didn't change many minds. "I was born in '37, which was probably the height of the depression, and aIl I've ever known all my life is inflation," another agent said. "Somehow or other, somebody's changed the rules because most of us in this room when we talk about 'are the good times back, is it going to get better,' we're talking Inflation. "That's what we're thinking about, are prices going to con- tinue to rise? Can the house I sold 25 months ago be worth more 25 months from now?" Co fd Itiil Document Shredding # High volume equipment will reduce your shredding cost # Secure locked containers at no extra cost # Bonded drivers + 100% of paper is recycled + Certificate of destruction + Volume discounts available year-end, clean-outs CAL NOf (905) 427-3605 (Derrick) WASTE SYSTEMS Even the DREB member who thanked Thiessen for coming expressed the hope he may allow a little bit of inflation to make real estate agents' Christmases a little merrier. Thiessen did offer hope that Christmas for other than agents may soon get a little merrier, though. "I think there's been an exces- sive amount of pessimism in Canada about our situation... if we keep our costs under control, if we run our affairs well, I think the prospects in terms of the basic economy are a lot better than they have been for a long time." Thiessen says we're starting to see the beneficial effects of Cana- dian businesses who've cut costs and restructured so their pro- The president of the Cuban Chamber of Commerce will be gest speaker at a meeting in Whitbyon Friday, Sept. 23. Carlos Martinez Salsamendi will discuss the future of Cuba and the need for a strong mar- ket-oriented economic policy. The meeting has been organ- BEDR holds video seminars The Bureau for Excellence in Durham Region (BEDR) will conduct a series of video seminars to increase the awareness and knowledge of total quality in the workplace and daily life. The seminars will take place in the evenings on the first Thursday of each month in the lecture theatre of Durham College, Oshawa campus. The seminars are free of charge to the public and will be projected on a large screen for easy viewing. The first seminar will be shown on Thursday, Oct. 6 from 7 to 8:30 p.m., and will feature noted business strategist Joel Barker on 'Discovering the Future.' Barker, the man who brought the word "paradigm" to corporations and organizations all over the world, discusses in the series the 'key that unlocks resistance to change and opens the doorways to innovation." For more information, call the BEDR office at 721-2000 ext. 4004. ducts are more competitive inter- nationally. "The efforts of Canadian in- dustry, I think, have been very, very impressive." Thelower Canadian dollar has also helped our export industries, he says. "We've moved from a situation where there was cross border shopping going the other way to the point where cross border shopping is now coming this way. But the low dollar is a two- edged sword, says Thiessen. "The dollar going down is help- ful only because what it effec- tively does is reduce wages and salaries of all Canadians and that helps to make us more competitive... so it doesn't come for nothing." ized by the Durham Region Manufacturers Association and Town of Whitby, to highlight business opportunities with Cuba. Canada exports annually more than $100 million of goods and services to Cuba which wants investment, technology and deve- lopment in steel, pharmaceutical and health care services, oil and gas exploration, and refining, construction, telecommunica- tions, food processing and tour- 1sm. The meeting in Whitby wil be held at Heydenshore Pailion, starting at 11:30 a.m. with registration (tickets are $35). For more information, call 434- 1412. CIM to hold awards night The Canadian Institute of Management, Durham Region branch, is hosting an awards banquet and dance on Sept. 16. The reception is at 5:30 p.m., dinner at 7 p.m., at Cullen Gardens & Miniature Village, Whitby. Gary Polonsky, president of Durham College, will speak on "Where the jobs are in Canada and how to get them." Everyone is invited to attend. There is no cost for CIM members and students, cost for the general public is $30. For more information call (416) 586-5629. Cuban chamber president to visit m