Weekly Regional Business Intelligence | | | Written by Kieran Delamont, Associate Editor, London Inc. | | | “Folks are fearful; they’re anxious; they’re devastated.” Fanshawe College announces deep staffing cuts The extent of widely expected staffing cuts at Fanshawe College were revealed on Thursday, with president Peter Devlin saying the school will cut 35 per cent of the workforce, or approximately 400 employees. Of those job cuts, 170 will be achieved by cutting vacant positions and offering early retirement packages, plus the reduction of one vice-president (Michele Beaudoin, VP of student services, is retiring), while the rest will be spread between teaching and support staff. The union president for support staff, Adam Rayfield (president of OPSEU Local 109), told CBC News London that “folks are fearful; they’re anxious, they’re devastated. At the end of the day, there’s going to be a chunk of people who are no longer here, and personally, that’s devastating.” More details on the layoffs are expected to come in June as the school completes its restructuring plan. The upshot: The news is bad, but it isn’t surprising ― we’ve been hearing about cuts coming down the pipe from Devlin for months at this point, although the depth of the cuts is deeper than some expected. And it’s hardly limited to Fanshawe, with just about every other college in Ontario dealing with the same problem. What does seem a bit surprising, even considering the full plates of upper levels of government right now, is the shoulder shrugging going on as a college system in Ontario that was highly regarded and successful at attracting international talent crumbles very quickly. Virtually all parties and experts agree that funding reform for colleges is badly needed (including an auditor general’s report warning the government about this very outcome), but yet the issue seems to be low on the priority list of the provincial government, if it’s even on their radar at all. If nothing changes, all that really remains to be seen is how significant the long-term consequences on our development of skilled workers will become. Read more: CBC News London | London Free Press | | | 3PL arm of Drexel Industries, including four warehouses and 100 employees, acquired by U.S.-based Kenco Third-party logistics (3PL) provider Kenco, based in Chattanooga, Tennessee, announced Monday it had acquired the 3PL arm of London distribution and fulfillment company Drexel Industries. The deal includes four warehouses in London as well as approximately 100 employees who will now work for Kenco. The warehouses primarily serve the Toronto, Detroit and Buffalo markets. “As Kenco continues to grow, we’ve looked for opportunities to better serve our existing customers across Canada,” said Denis Reilly, president and CEO at Kenco. “With Drexel Industries joining the Kenco family, customers of both brands will gain access to a broader network of warehouses and logistics services.” Kenco provides numerous supply chain management services in addition to warehousing and fulfillment, like freight brokerage, transportation management and dedicated contract carriage. The company now operates 43 million square feet of warehouse space. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. The upshot: Launched in 2011 by CEO Jason Salmon (pictured) out of his garage, Drexel quickly expanded to operating from storage units, then a single warehouse, then multiple warehouses as the delivery culture exploded. The business has stored and shipped goods for a variety of online retailers — essentially the Amazon model for dozens of retailers, including Costco, Walmart, Best Buy, Canadian Tire and even Amazon itself. “Culturally and operationally, Kenco is a perfect fit with our 3PL business,” said Salmon. “Our teams share the same vision: to lift the complexities of logistics management off our customers, so they can focus on core competencies. Blending Kenco’s automation and technology resources with our Canadian market knowledge and warehouses’ proximity to key markets, we’ll empower businesses across North America to reach new levels of distribution efficiency.” Read more: Inside Logistics | The Middle Market | | | Rock the Runway aims to be the largest musical event in city’s history The organizers behind the long-running Rock the Park concert series announced a new venture this week: Rock the Runway, a fall concert festival held out at the London International Airport that organizers say will be the largest musical event the city has ever seen. Jones Entertainment Group (JEG) will partner with Western’s University Students’ Council to put on the event, doubling as the return of the school’s PurpleFest event. The event is planned for September 12 and 13, and organizers are preparing for around 25,000 attendees each night. The initial germ of the idea came from the airport itself ― YXU CEO Scott McFadzean had pitched the airport as a potential venue to JEG 18 months ago. “As soon as we stood in the middle of the northwest runway, I knew we had something special,” said Brad Jones of Jones Entertainment Group, in a statement (pictured from left is Jones, Rhegan Whelpley and Kathleena Henricus of Western’s USC, and the airport’s Scott McFadzean). “We are so proud of the brand we have created with Rock the Park over the last 21 years. We didn’t want to compete with ourselves, so the natural fit is to cater to the 40,000 plus students that come back to Western and Fanshawe each September.” Most of the details ― ticket prices, musical acts, etc. ― are still being finalized, and organizers said they are in talks with “high-profile” artists to play at the show. The upshot: The fall concert slot has been a rotating door of events over the past decade or so. Block Party came and went (and then came back again), and then there was the short-lived ParkJam in 2019, plus the free Elevate Music Fest is set to return to downtown this year (on the same weekend, no less). And on the student side, PurpleFest has bounced on and off the calendar. Which is all to say that nailing the formula for fall concerts (which largely centres around attracting students) has been tricky. JEG’s bet is that by going bigger, both in terms of venue size and artist cache, they can nail it. JEG said the increased capacity ― roughly double Harris Park ― will give them way more ability to bring in big musical names. “Each year, during the programming of Rock the Park, JEG has an option on at least one major artist that financially cannot fit into Harris Park due to the limited capacity,” the organizers said. “Now with Rock the Runway and its capacity of 25,000, it will allow these artists the opportunity to play within the City of London.” Read more: CTV News London | | | From the website: The envelope please! When the brightest innovators and trailblazers of London’s business community gather at RBC Place London on May 13, they’ll have plenty to celebrate. The annual London Chamber of Commerce Business Achievement Awards gala is the crowning event of our city’s bustling business calendar, and the event — which this year marks its 42nd anniversary — has grown to become the largest of its kind in Canada. This year’s finalists represent the broad spectrum of our local business community — everything from technology and professional services firms to a host of specialized manufacturers and community-minded organizations. Click below to learn about all of this year’s finalists! Read more: London Inc. | | | York altering twin tower project at forks of the Thames, vastly reducing planned office space York Developments is sending its $500-million twin tower project at the forks of the Thames back to the drawing board for tweaks to better fit changing market conditions. According to a report in The London Free Press, York is redesigning the project to include more residential units, expanding the number of amenities and reducing the amount of office space included in the project. “We are trying to create a lifestyle rather than an apartment building. Tenants expect more now,” said company president Ali Soufan. The redesign is primarily focused on the first seven floors, which were set to host most of the office space. Office space will be reduced to 20,000 square feet from the initial plan of 160,000. York also said it is adding larger units to the design. The redesign will have to go back before city council to review the site plan, but with the core of the project already approved it’s unlikely that there will be much objection. For now, though, it means that construction is delayed until at least the summer The upshot: A lot of interesting market dynamics at work here. One is obvious ― the office market is so soft in downtown London that adding seven floors of new capacity was going to be a tough strategy to pull off. The other is the size of residential units. Soufan told the Free Press that “We are seeing now in the Toronto market [that] smaller units are not in demand,” and that they are “reorienting to have larger format units.” Going heavy on amenities is an interesting aspect as well. There is demand out there for these kinds of hotel-style amenities, but it also drives prices higher (one of the two towers is expected to be a condo building, the other a rental). Assuming city hall okays the plan, major excavation work is expected to take until next summer, with occupancy not expected until 2028 or 2029. At 43 storeys (condo building) and 53 storeys (rental apartment), and approximately 800 units on the site, the two buildings will be the tallest in London. Read more: London Free Press | | | Trump puts the local film industry in tariff crosshairs Donald Trump has yet another new tariff in the works ― this one on movies made outside of the United States. Framing this (improbably) as a “matter of national security,” Trump said last weekend they are drawing up plans to apply a 100 per cent tariff on “any and all Movies coming into our Country that are produced in Foreign Lands,” (capitalization his, obviously). This has garnered a number of reactions from the local and domestic film industry. The first is confusion, on how exactly you apply tariffs to a movie. “He has no idea how the film industry works,” Dorothy Downs, founder of the Forest City Film Festival, told CBC News London. “I don’t know how you put a tariff on intellectual property.” But there’s real concern, too ― Canada has long attracted U.S. productions to shoot here with a variety of tax incentives and credits, and even if a tariff can’t be applied, it helps nobody if this globalized structure becomes a bargaining chip. “Part of supporting local industry is attracting foreign productions,” said Film London’s Andrew Dodd. The upshot: While we’ve all learned by now that you should probably take Trump’s latest thing somewhat seriously, the movie tariff idea is one of his more half-baked ― indeed, the idea seems to have come directly from 86-year-old actor Jon Voight. Nobody can really explain how it would work, for one thing, and it would seem counterintuitive that the U.S. would seek to start a trade war over digital services, which it mainly exports, for another. Still, like much of the rest of the tariff discussion, domestic producers are taking it as a signal to diversify and shore up our own domestic film industry. “It’s forcing us to look within,” said London-based producer Christopher Evans. “We have the potential to be our own ecosystem and tell our own stories.” Read more: CBC News London | | | Dispatch: May 9, 2025 A summary of recent business appointments and announcements, plus event listings for the upcoming week. View listings here | | | | |