The bustling service economy created by the City of Elliot Lake needs a few willing hands ready to swing a hammer or fix a snowmobile.
The historic uranium mining town-turned-retirement-community has enjoyed phenomenal success in staying alive and thriving since Rio Algom closed the last mine in 1996.
They've spring-boarded their nationally-famous retirement living concept into a cottage lot development program that's proved fruitful beyond the wildest dreams.
Now they need to restock the labour force that has accompanied a massive cottage construction and home renovation boom in the community of 11,500.
The city is playing matchmaker for local business in attempting to fill about 20 job openings ranging from plumbing to masonry to hair styling.
“If we get the word out that Elliot Lake is not just about retirement, but our economy is healthy and recession-resistant, we're going to fit the bill,” said Dan Gagnon, the city's economic development director.
Elliot Lake's entrepreneurial-minded leaders have always been ahead of the curve. With uranium mining clearly on the decline in the early 1990s, insightful local officials dreamed up the retirement living concept to sell cheap homes abandoned by mining families. Over the years, their Retirement Living development corporation have proved to be savvy marketing geniuses.
“We're not afraid to take a chance when it makes sense to do so,” said Mayor Rick Hamilton.
“The old mine houses were nice but not spectacular and the renovation industry has been booming for quite some time,” said Hamilton.
The community needed more housing – currently running at 97 per cent occupancy – and a more diverse range of offerings.
The city sold 436 acres to the Retirement Living corporation building a lakeside condominium complex on the south shore of Elliot Lake for 2010 ribbon cutting. The complex features two-bedroom units, a lakeside view, underground parking and no grass to cut. A new marketing office will go in nearby.
“We've never had the higher end market,” said Gagnon.
The corporation also invested in a new 55-room Hampton Inn, expected to open this October.
The recent wave of cottage lot development has produced many positive spinoffs in re-branding Elliot Lake. All this activity requires skilled people in occupations across the board in the medical, service and especially the hospitality field.
The city saw this coming when they performed a business retention and expansion in 2006 where most companies indicated they wanted to expand, but needed more bodies.
A job search strategy this summer was launched and they've managed to do it on the cheap with some non-traditional methods of advertising. About $2,500 was spent to buy a few weeks of TV airtime in northeastern Ontario, but the city has also used Facebook, Twitter and YouTube to do their marketing for them.
A FedNor intern has been hired by the city to field the job inquiries and direct them to the businesses that need help. They hope to lure 30-something former Elliot Lakers back to town. With a few weeks, between 25 and 30 inquiries had come in.
There are other development in the works including plans for a new industrial park, a new 10,000-square-foot headquarters for the Retirement Living corporation, a new No Frills grocery and a Home Hardware on the main retail corridor coming into town.
The city's cottage development program is in a temporary holding pattern. The reason being, they've run out of lake property to sell.
The city struck a groundbreaking deal with the Ontario government which legislation – the Elliot Lake Act – in 2001 to open 10 Crown lakes for cottage development on a staged basis. A sophisticated lake management plan was put in place by the Ministry of Natural Resources to keep the environmental impacts to minimum.
Hamilton said when they started, they had modest expectations at the outset. “Council thought we'd be fortunate to sell 50 to 60 lots.”
The buying frenzy that resulted and generated in the city's marketing arm – LakeShore Properties – sold 225 of 237 available lots on three lakes; Dunlop, Quirke and Popeye, north of the community of 11,500.
It brought buyers from all over the map of Northern and Southern Ontario from middle-class professionals to near-retirees who are converting their cottages into permanent homes.
Hamilton said what land remains really isn't marketable, but the lots remain open for purchase.
The city is back at the table with the Ministry of Natural Resources to reach an memorandum of understanding to open up more lakes with some additional tweaks in the lake management plans. “Nothing we can't overcome,” said Hamilton.
However, LakeShore Properties turned out to be a victim of their success. With little inventory left to sell, the city mothballed the land agency and laid off its four employees.
Working through the MOU process with the ministry to open up more lakes likely won't be complete for another 12 to 18 months.
“It was a difficult decision to lay them off, but the business case didn't support keeping them.”
When buyers bought lots, they had to sign a covenant to build their camps within three years, a stipulation to ward off land speculators.
The combination of the recession and a run on carpenters and other skilled labour had lakeside buyers far from turning sod. Hamilton said there's been no forfeiture of property and the city is considering the extending the covenant.
“This is a learning experience for us,” said Hamilton. “It's all been experimental but so far we're doing okay.”
www.cityofelliotlake.com/en/invest/jobs.asp
www.elliotlakewaterfront.com
