London Inc. Weekly

Written by Kieran Delamont, Associate Editor, London Inc.

End of the road for Inglis Cycle Center

A longstanding fixture of London’s motorcycle industry is riding into the sunset, as the family-owned Inglis Cycle Center winds down operations after generations in business. Located at 466 McCormick Boulevard, Inglis will close on December 24. The dealership, which opened in 1978 and began as a Yamaha retailer before adding Suzuki and Kawasaki brands, is a popular destination for motorcycle enthusiasts across Southwestern Ontario. Over the decades, it built a reputation for its selection of motorcycles, parts and accessories along with a loyal customer following. Inglis was also among the first Canadian dealerships to sell Triumph Motorcycles back when the British manufacturer resumed production in the 1990s. More recently, it became London’s exclusive dealer for Chinese motorcycle brand CFMOTO in 2019. The business’s legacy was recognized last year with its induction into the Canadian Motorcycle Hall of Fame. Brothers Gord and Mike Inglis told The London Free Press the decision to close has been emotional, particularly given the relationships developed with customers over the years. “We have had such amazing customers, and we’ve developed such a wonderful following,” Mike said. “It is really tough on us.”

The upshot According to the Inglis brothers, they explored selling the business, but the financial requirements associated with securing manufacturer franchise agreements proved a significant obstacle for prospective buyers, particularly younger entrepreneurs. “It just makes it tough, especially for younger people wanting to get into the industry and the business,” Gord told the Free Press. The challenge highlights a broader issue facing independent dealerships: even an established business with a loyal customer base can be difficult to transfer to new ownership when manufacturers require substantial financial backing. In addition, the brothers said weaker demand, economic conditions and tighter margins also contributed to the decision to close. “The cost of everything has gone up. People are struggling to put food on the table, pay their rent, pay their mortgage,” Mike said. “The last thing they really need is a motorcycle.” This is the second prominent London motorcycle dealership to close in the past couple of years — in June of 2025, Rocky’s Harley-Davidson shut down after 70 years in business.

Read more: London Free Press

London rents continue downward trend as landlords turn to incentives to remain competitive

Asking rents in London are down again from a year ago, continuing the trend we’ve seen for most of the past 18 months, according to the latest Rentals.ca report. The average one-bedroom listed on Rentals.ca in October was $1,629 in London, down 3.2 per cent, with the average two-bedroom hitting the market at $1,994 (a four per cent decline). Rentals.ca associate director of communications, Giacomo Ladas, told The London Free Press that London is similar to other Ontario cities outside Toronto (where, the report stated, rents just rose year-over-year for the first time in 32 months). “There is definitely a little bit more affordability and London’s doing a really good job doing that,” he said. Month to month, rents barely moved, after falling around a per cent and a half in September. This, Ladas said, is largely a seasonal effect in which students drive demand over the summer, then it slows into winter. “I do think this fall and winter is going to be very much an advantage for London renters,” he said. “There is going to be a lot of supply, and prices are probably going to continue to come down year-over-year.”

The upshot: There’s not much new in this report that we haven’t seen over the past 12 to 18 months, and in fact, it likely understates how much of a tenant’s market we’re in right now. The report doesn’t capture widespread incentives that are working in renters’ favour right now, with landlords offering anything from gift cards to amenities credits to a couple months of free rent to attract tenants. “I would say the majority are first month free, and then some of them have a little kicker on that, like a gift card for $500 worth of groceries, a $500 gift card for Amazon or something of that nature,” said Jerry Drennan, chief operating officer of Drewlo Holdings, speaking to the Free Press in October. With many of these incentives being offered at newly built buildings, it likely overstates the headline rent price relative to what people are actually paying, meaning the market out there is better for tenants looking to move than the report says on the surface. 

Read more: Rentals.ca | London Free Press

London has a viral puzzle creator

London has produced a fun new viral content creator in one Ezz Fadel, who popped up on CBC’s London Morning this week to talk about the explosive hit of his rebus puzzles. Fadel has been a content creator for a while, but it’s been his latest format — man-on-the-street-style interviews in which mallgoers or people walking around the street attempt to solve one of his rebus puzzles that has struck a chord, seeing him rack up an approximate 2.5 million followers. (A rebus puzzle combines the use of illustrated pictures with individual letters to depict words or phrases —  best to watch one of his videos and see for yourself.) “I noticed as my content really started to grow and the numbers tarted to get bigger and bigger, outside of the puzzles what people enjoyed watching was the positivity behind the puzzle and behind the content itself,” Fazel told CBC. “Honestly, I started to notice that people are growing tired of watching toxic content, watching content that doesn’t have that feel-good moment.” Now, Fadel manages to swing this as a full-time gig. “The first Meta cheque that came through, that’s what made me realize what was going on over here,” the former Finch Auto Group sales associate joked on the radio show. “I think I could probably stop selling cars now.” 

The upshot: We love a good brain teaser here, and in writing this, I found myself sucked into Fadel’s feed, ten videos deep, before realizing I had to get back to writing. Which is to say, I definitely see the appeal. They’re fun! Proof positive that the viral content dream is still alive for at least one guy from London. Aside from one slight snafu when internet commenters, um, made fun of a chemo patient, it’s all very wholesome internet content. And yes, some of the puzzles drove me nuts. 

Read more: CBC London Morning | People Magazine

Veterans’ Village gets $1 million boost from WSIB

The Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB) is investing $1 million in London’s new Veterans’ Village tiny home community, it announced this week. The village comprises 25 small homes intended for homeless veterans on the grounds of Parkwood Institute, and is the fourth built by the Homes for Heroes Foundation, a Calgary-based charity. The WSIB’s contribution will go to programming, rather than serving as construction capital, with the contribution being used to fund case management, mental health services, employment help and, potentially, scholarships for residents who want to study trades at Fanshawe College. “For many veterans, what happens in the past doesn’t stay in the past,” said WSIB president and CEO Jeff Lang (pictured) at the announcement. “It lives on in their present, in physical injuries or disabilities, in psychological trauma, unemployment and sometimes homelessness.” Homes for Heroes president and CEO Brad Field said the village is about 95 per cent finished and should open to residents by December 1.

The upshot: Many people working in the social services sector will tell you some version of what Field is getting at when he said that “the four walls and the roof are the easy part, it’s the programming that creates success” — so it’s helpful from the perspective of Homes for Heroes to have additional funds to work with. London, in general, has a good track record with addressing veteran homelessness — in October 2020, the city was recognized as the first in Canada to achieve “functional zero veteran homelessness” and had maintained that status, although according to Elle Lane in 2022, pressure has gradually built up as more people were pushed into homelessness in the post-Covid period, while resources remained limited. According to Field, there is currently no shortage of demand for its services. “We’ve already started conversations with our partner agencies here in London,” Field told The London Free Press. “We’re getting a list put together of veterans that are in need or are ready to enter a program like ours.” 

Read more: CTV News London | WSIB

Spin Master co-founder Ronnen Harary brings his $500 pitch challenge to Western

If you’re sitting on a simmering business idea, there is a pitch contest coming to town that will give you $500 and a week to get stated. Ronnen Harary, a Western University alumnus and co-founder of Spin Master (the company behind TV hits like PAW Patrol and Bakugan and popular toys like Hatchimals and Kinetic Sand) is bringing the No Experience Necessary Challenge to Western’s campus next Tuesday. Simple concept here — pitch him a business idea and he’ll give you $500 bucks if he likes the idea. You then have seven days to spend it and work it out into a full pitch. Judges then scrutinize the ideas from there, and Harary will give 10 of them $25,000 each at a virtual final after the tour wraps up. Ahead of a stop in Hamilton, Harary told the Hamilton Spectator the frantic nature is part of the point, and part of the fun. “When we get in our intellect, then we start to doubt ourselves. And doubt is the anti-luck.” The road show is coming to town on November 17, and entry is open to anyone 18 or older, student or not, but you must register ahead of time and as of Thursday the sign-up page listed the Western stop as sold out.

The upshot: The tour doubles as promotion for Harary’s book, which came out this summer (conveniently titled No Experience Necessary), but we can find a fun London-nostalgia connection anyways: Harary started Spin Master with a few university buddies in 1994, coming out of Ivey Business School, and made a small fortune selling products like the Earth Buddy, which the toy company followed up with Air Hogs and later Tech Deck finger skateboards, and eventually (it by now being the 2010s) moving from finished consumer goods into digital media, with the creation of Paw Patrol. It is an unimpeachable consumer product goods résumé from the perspective of a kid who grew up in the 1990s and early 2000s. And the $500-and-a-week challenge sounds like a fun take on the business pitch concept. 

Read more: Hamilton Spectator | No Experience Necessary Challenge

Downton London releases five-year plan

The London Downtown Business Association (maybe better known as the Downtown London or the LDBA) has released its latest five-year plan, which sets out four goals and 14 objectives for the BIA. They include mostly working towards bread-and-butter downtown stuff: better litter collection and graffiti removal, more events, greater business retention, an increase in convenient, affordable parking and working with municipal, police and community partners to “reduce disorder.” For the Downtown London, the five-year plan is largely about adapting its role to the new realities of downtown spaces. “Downtown is changing, and we need to continue adapting while staying grounded in our role as the voice of downtown businesses,” said board chair Kristin Nielsen in a press release. “This plan helps us focus our efforts, work toward shared priorities with our partners and remain accountable for the work we do on behalf of our members.” Vicki Smith, interim executive director for the BIA, said the plan will help “guide our programs, advocacy, partnerships and decisions about where to focus our resources.”

The upshot: Okay, so the approval of a five-year governance and vision document for a BIA might not be earth-shattering news, and the document itself could be read as being a bit anodyne, but file it under stories-to-watch for another reason. The development and approval of this plan comes in the shadow of much larger effort to change the way London’s downtown is managed and governed. The City’s Downtown Reimagined plan, released and approved by council earlier this year, proposed the creation of a new City Downtown Office and an arm’s-length Downtown Revitalization Authority, whose mandate could include place management, marketing and promotion and partner coordination. That body — yet to be created, though likely to be revisited in the early days of a new council term — will have to work with Downtown London in some respect, though the crucial question of what kind of authority it has and whether its prerogative will differ or clash with that of the BIA remains to be seen. In laying out this five-year plan right as a new council is set to be sworn in next week, Downtown London is also looking to present itself as a partner that a mostly returning council can continue to work with on the downtown revitalization question. Over the last term of council, we saw business associations such as the Old East Village BIA or the expansionist Hyde Park BIA grow into more active political identities, and Downtown London will be eager to continue building its influence at city hall. 

Read more: Downtown London | LEDC

Dispatch: November 13, 2026

A summary of recent business appointments and announcements, plus event listings for the upcoming week.

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