Len Skok is ready to live the walking city.
In launching Pine Tree Real Estate Brokerage Inc., located in downtown Barrie, Skok and partner Cathy Galt aim to have one of the country’s first environmentally conscious real-estate brokerages.
They promise to plant a tree through Living Green Barrie with every successful transaction, but say they plan a range of initiatives from going paperless to encouraging the use of electric cars to earn their green credentials.
“We’re not going to talk the talk and not walk the walk,” says Skok.
The couple recently moved to a downtown condo and he is set to leave the car behind and make the commute to the new Dunlop Street East office every day by foot.
Being downtown, however, is just as much a business strategy as it is a green one as the core continues to develop, attracting not just retail shops, bars and restaurants, but more apartments and condos and businesses like Pine Tree.
In seeking out new space, Skok wanted a boutique storefront space in an area with decent foot traffic.
Bringing in a crew of about 20 agents with plans to soon include branches in Collingwood, Orillia and Muskoka, Skok said Barrie’s core provides a perfect setting for the brokerage’s head office, surrounded by a variety of shops, businesses and other services.
And then there’s visibility with the company’s awning serving as wonderful advertising and a window-front television broadcasting some of the firm’s listings is sure to attract some eyes.
“We just felt that this was an ideal opportunity for us, being a new brand, to expose the brand and to get people to come in,” Skok says.
There’s no question that Barrie’s downtown area has a unique ambience unmatched elsewhere in the city. Its recent streetscape facelift and redevelopment of Meridian Place overlooking Kempenfelt Bay, along with events like Open Air Dunlop, have helped to keep it current.
But there is also a sense of community, along with diversity, that some entrepreneurs find attractive.
“It was the culture we wanted,” says Ashleigh Clarke, who, alongside business partner Sierra Hudspeth, moved their BE beauty & wellness clinic, which was then two years old, to second-storey space on Dunlop Street East in January 2021. “This was just the space that felt right.
“I know it sounds crazy to sign a five-year lease in the middle of a pandemic.”
Despite a pandemic-enforced closure for 18 weeks last year and a reduction in services they could offer, BE beauty & wellness clinic still experienced growth.
Clarke, a registered nurse who had worked in oncology for 14 years, and Hudspeth, a registered practical nurse, wanted to be part of the community in the core and enjoy being surrounded by all aspects of what you expect to find downtown, which of course comes with the unexpected and a wide assortment of people.
“It all adds to the favour of the location,” Clarke says.
And being above street level provided them with a stunning waterfront view from large, arch windows — which was actually an element on their vision board of the business they had envisioned.
But the second-floor space also provides them with a sense of insulation. BE beauty — which provides Botox treatments, fillers, laser, micro-needling and is re-introducting facials — is a destination business, so they don’t need the walk-in traffic so important to retail businesses.
They’ve even found a workaround to make it more accessible through the back entrance for those who need it.
There is something compelling about being in the core, says Chad Ballantyne, a member of the Downtown Barrie BIA and creative director of Rhubarb Media Inc., which occupied several spaces in the core along with the Creative Space co-working organization for many years.
“I wanted the energy, I wanted the location,” says Ballantyne, adding a downtown address is often an attraction. “What I loved about it is there’s the energy, the local shops. You couldn’t find a bad meal downtown.”
He thinks the recent revitalization and initiatives have helped to up the ante. But proximity to other businesses, he says, results in natural networking.
Rob Tallis, property manager of Wynstar Commercial Properties, which owns several buildings in the downtown core, looks past the pandemic for the future of downtown Barrie.
As organizations recall workers back to their offices, he foresees some large Toronto-based businesses may look to opening branches outside of the large cities, in communities like Barrie, a destination of choice for those who left Toronto during the pandemic.
“So smaller, more remote office space will be in demand,” Tallis says.
And for entrepreneurs starting out, there’s potential for working/living co-spaces downtown.
But for many, collaboration with other businesses, co-working and networking has long served as the attraction of downtown Barrie, says Tallis, pointing to a half-dozen businesses in the core involved in the intellectual property domain including marketing and internet-based businesses.
“It’s not just about the building; it’s about the environment down there and I think that Barrie, downtown, has great potential for that,” he says.
