Weekly Regional Business Intelligence
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Written by Kieran Delamont, Associate Editor, London Inc.
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Farhi jumps aboard office-to-residential incentive program
The City of London is partnering up with a familiar name for its third official office-to-residential conversion project in the downtown core. The city announced that it had struck a deal with Shmuel Farhi and Farhi Holdings Corporation (FHC) to convert 685 Richmond Street to a 41-unit residential project (rendering pictured), a $7.5-million project to which the city will be chipping in $1.4 million. “We’ve been marketing it for office space for the last couple of years with no luck due to changing environments in the downtown, so we’ve identified it as a solid office-to-residential conversion opportunity, and we’re in the process of completing construction in the next five to six months,” said FHC’s Ben Farhi. FHC also announced that at 166 Dundas Street, a property it reacquired from the Maas Group earlier this year (after the Mississauga developer backed out of the conversion project), Farhi plans on doubling the number of units, increasing it from 15 to 32. Mayor Josh Morgan said in a press release that the partnership was “another vital stride we’re making as a city to revive our downtown, providing more diverse and creative housing opportunities while preserving buildings and utilizing empty or undeveloped spaces.”
The upshot: Looking at the stock of downtown office space it was inevitable, really, that the conversion program and FHC would meet up at some point. The good news is that Farhi appears to want to work quickly on this, and both projects are roughly on a timeline that would see them open by early to mid-2026. “There’s already a lot of money invested in this space,” Morgan said. “You’re not going to walk away from that type of capital commitment. The way to recoup that money is to get rents.” With three core conversions on the go now (including the Sifton project at 195 Dufferin Avenue), we are getting closer to seeing some real results ― and validation that pushing city cash and political capital into these projects can result in quality housing units produced from mid-sized office footprints. Enthusiasm for doing so has been somewhat muted, but if you’re the city, you hope that a couple of successful projects spurs more interest in the concept.
Read more: CBC News London | CTV News London
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MFC Training to deliver flight training in partnership with Western and YXU
New Brunswick-based MFC Training announced a new partnership this week with Western University and the London International Airport (YXU) to deliver flight training to students in Western’s Commercial Aviation Management (CAM) program. It’s the company’s first expansion into Ontario. “By aligning with MFC Training, we’re not only expanding our flight training capacity, we’re embedding our students into a nationally recognized pilot training system, complete with modern aircraft, advanced simulation, and a direct path to successful careers in commercial aviation,” said Western’s CAM program director Jacqueline Book. Calvin Ash, president of MFC Training, added, “Between Western’s world-class academic programing and MFC Training’s industry-leading flight instruction, our combined offering will produce graduates with a powerful combination of aviation skill and top-notch educational background, ready to carry our industry forward for the next generation.”
The upshot: This is a nice fit for YXU, too. MFC Training says they will be bringing two Level 2 flight training simulators and eight aircraft to YXU for training purposes. “Since 1929, MFC Training has been a leader in flight training across Canada,” said YXU president Scott McFadzean. “We are excited that their first Ontario location will be here at YXU. This is an excellent fit for our growing aerospace hub.” Chris Walsh, managing director for MFC Training, said that the expansion to London “is a major milestone for MFC that would not have been possible without the partnership of both Western and the London International Airport Authority.”
Read more: YXU | Skies Magazine
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Home sales fall again as listings continue to pile up
According to the London and St. Thomas Association of Realtors (LSTAR), which released data for home sales in the month of May this week, a total of 722 homes exchanged hands in the region (the LSTAR catchment area also takes in Strathroy, St. Thomas and portions of Middlesex and Elgin counties), a 15.4 per cent decline compared to sales in May of 2024. On the supply side, a total of 1,999 new properties entered the market in May, a 15.3 per cent hike from the same period a year ago. Active listings (a total of all listing) for the month sat at 3,253, a 26.5 per cent hike from May of 2024. In a nutshell, any hopes of a revived spring market are now officially dead. “The increase in listings is encouraging for buyers,” said Dale Marsh, 2025 LSTAR Chair. “However, economic uncertainty, particularly from U.S. tariffs, continues to influence market behavior.”
The upshot: For the few that are buying and the many that are trying to sell, it’s worth noting that the average price remains stable at $656,432, up 1.4 per cent from a year ago. The question is, will prices continue to hold? “We have record low demand and we have record high supply. One would expect prices to be falling in such circumstances. But prices are holding ― so far,” said Marcus Plowright, A Team London partner in his On the House column this week. “Lower demand and a flood of supply alone should push market pricing down, but we can now add recent news that homeowners are missing debt payments and incurring bankruptcies at a rate not seen since 2008,” he continued. “Homeowners have been using their homes escalated values, which have more than doubled since 2017, to consolidate consumer debt into their mortgages. That trend may be coming to an end as they run out of home equity to leverage, or they hit the limit of their ability to service additional debt.”
Read more: LSTAR | London Inc.
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City hall takes first step to redevelop city hall campus
The city is starting the process of screening builders for its five-year city hall redevelopment project. The city has put out a “request for pre-qualification,” which screens builders before they’re officially invited to bid on the project, and which gives a bit of insight into the scope of the project. The document calls for the addition of 300,000 square feet of new office space at 300 Dufferin Avenue, with the idea being to bring city staff entirely under one roof. Around 22 companies (ranging from architecture firms to builders) have so far expressed interest, with the deadline for pre-qualification set in late July. The city has rather interesting ambitions for the site ― in keeping with the mayor’s housing focus, it wants to have both market rate and affordable housing on the site. It’s likely that more concrete versions of proposals will start to materialize later this year.
The upshot: With nearly every third downtown office already sitting vacant, and just about everyone in the modern world having adopted remote and hybrid work to one extent or another, one might wonder (as London Inc. does) why the city thinks it needs to add 300,000 square feet of new office space to the mix, why it believes its employees all need to be under one roof and why it can’t simply use its earmarked $125 million to renovate and spruce up city hall and continue to help with the vacancy issue by placing select departments throughout the downtown (it already does this in a dozen spaces). We’re not buying the “reduction of long-term costs” sell, because even as a P3, we all know costs to the taxpayer will balloon way beyond $125 million. With plenty of hard lifting not yet done on core and OEV issues that are keeping people away from our downtown, this big, shiny new civic toy continues to feel wrong on a lot of levels.
Read more: London Free Press
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Western and Fanshawe to end collaborative nursing program
Western University and Fanshawe College are severing their long-standing collaborative nursing programs, as both schools move to offer their own standalone degrees. According to reporting in the Western Gazette, the final intake into the Western-Fanshawe Collaborative Bachelor of Science will go ahead this September, with the new standalone programs beginning in September 2026. According to Western University Senate meeting notes, the move came from the Fanshawe side, which initiated a dissolution of the program at some point last year. There will be some small changes for Western students ― the program will be condensed to 3.5 years instead of four, a change that Western said is “in response to increasing nursing enrolment resulting in pressure securing sufficient clinical placements with the school’s partners” ― but otherwise the programs will be “largely unchanged.”
The upshot: Fanshawe hasn’t said much publicly about the impetus for the dissolution of the shared program, but given the financial state of the college, the move was likely financially driven. Ontario’s funding model for colleges is largely enrolment-based, and this will likely give Fanshawe access to more direct funding, as opposed to negotiating shared funding arrangements with Western, which was technically the degree-granting institution in the collaborative program. As well, direct funding tends to be higher for bachelor’s degree programs at Ontario colleges, so Fanshawe should be able to tap into more funding there.
Read more: Western Gazette
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Dozens laid off at General Dynamics Land Systems-Canada
General Dynamics Land Systems-Canada (GDLS-C) announced that it was laying off “dozens” of staff this week, with reports of around 50 salaried employees being let go. “General Dynamics Land Systems-Canada is conducting a modest workforce reduction based on current volume and workload,” a spokesperson told The London Free Press. “We understand the impact this has on affected employees and their families, and it was a decision we did not make lightly.” None of the layoffs affected the 485 Unifor members who work at the Oxford Street facility, although sources told the Free Press that the layoffs affected engineers and clerical staff.
The upshot: Back in March, General Dynamics was lobbying the feds for additional orders for light armoured vehicles (LAVs), saying it needed orders for 400 LAVs over the next decade “just to keep the lights on.” Work at the military equipment manufacturer is naturally cyclical, depending on current trends in military procurement. On that point, though, you might figure GDLS-C stands to gain in the short- to mid-term, with Prime Minister Mark Carney being vocal both about Canada’s need to boost defence spending as well as the desire to shift that spending away from American-made products. “There’s no better time than now to rally around what we have here in London,” Jeff Skinner, chairperson of Unifor Local 27, said back in March. “We need to wrap the flag around it. Our members are very proud to build for the Canadian military.”
Read more: London Free Press | CTV News London
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Dispatch: June 6, 2025
A summary of recent business appointments and announcements, plus event listings for the upcoming week.
View listings here
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