London Inc. Weekly

Written by Kieran Delamont, Associate Editor, London Inc.

Footlab to make Canadian debut at White Oaks Mall

White Oaks has landed another splashy tenant to help fill its Bay-sized vacancy — this one an AI-powered soccer training facility co-owned by Portuguese soccer star Cristiano Ronaldo. Called Footlab, the facility says it will construct a 37,000-square-foot training-slash-recreation facility (rendering pictured) featuring cutting-edge sports technology with small soccer fields, plus games, training tools and virtual reality components. The facility will be the first Footlab in Canada (it currently has five open locations globally alongside several venues under construction), which the company said “represents a very important milestone in Footlab’s global expansion strategy.” White Oaks marketing manager Sarah Imrie described the facility as being “for all ages and all skill levels,” adding that “you can host your birthday party with a couple of your friends. Whether you’re 99 or turning nine, it’s a great opportunity just to have a good time and enjoy the sport.” White Oaks general manager Tarik Kasem said, “This is about giving athletes and football fans in our community access to a truly world-class experience, one that was previously out of reach.” There’s no opening date set for the facility as of yet, but the company saidit will release more details in the coming weeks.

The upshot: It’s a little unclear whether Footlab thinks of itself as a high-tech training facility for serious soccer players, or a high-tech entertainment and rec facility for big-time soccer fans. In coverage of one U.S. facility, a company official said it was created “because we realized that there was a huge gap in the market between these younger generations and our generation. […] There are so many things nowadays that we need to fight for their attention. We have Netflix, online gaming, so based on that, we started to think of what we could do to bridge the gap between these younger generations and soccer.” For White Oaks, it is an additional solution to the challenge created by the Bay’s demise, and highlights the strategy being employed to reshape the traditional mall model.

Read more: London Free Press | CBC News London

Waste Solutions Canada acquires PragmaTech Waste Solutions

London’s Waste Solutions Canada (WSC) is acquiring PragmaTech Waste Solutions, a Milton-based waste management consulting company. “PragmaTech has built an exceptional business with a talented team, strong customer relationships and a culture closely aligned with our own,” said Jason Wilcox, co-founder and CEO of Waste Solutions Canada. “Together, we are creating a stronger platform that will deliver greater value to our clients, team members and vendor partners.” Founded in 2011, PragmaTech primarily works with commercial and multi-residential clients to manage waste programs, and have marketed themselves as a tech-centric ‘smart’ waste consultancy. Derrick Tuyl, founder of PragmaTech, said “joining WSC provides exciting opportunities for our employees and customers,” and praised the “cultural fit” it has found with WSC. With this acquisition, WSC says it now supports more than 5,000 customer locations across Canada and the United States.

The upshot: Last fall, WSC took on a major investment from private equity firm TorQuest Partners, a Toronto-based firm with a track record of scaling companies organically and through mergers and acquisitions such as this. In a WSC press release, the company said it will “remain active in evaluating strategic acquisitions across North America,” so additional purchases like this may be waiting in the wings. This is WSC’s third acquisition in five years, however the previous two were smaller in nature, so this stands out as a much more substantial growth purchase. 

Read more: Waste Today Magazine

FlyXcite opens at YXU

FlyXcite has officially opened its doors at the London International Airport. The fixed-base operator (FBO) offers what is essentially a private aviation terminal for premium travel, largely focused on corporate clients, and the company broke ground on its new 35,000-square-foot facility back in 2024. “London airport traditionally has never had a facility of this calibre to house larger corporate aircraft, and that was the big need that we found,” said Eric Roth, COO of FlyXcite, speaking to CTV News London. “Our corporate aviation side has grown over the years, but we just did not have the ability to properly service or house or hangar these types of aircraft.” Roth gave an example of how the private hangar would be used: “We just had a local company, General Dynamics, bring in their corporate aircraft from head office, and they stayed overnight, which they’ve never been able to do.”

The upshot: YXU has seen a cluster of private aviation investment over the last few years, including a different private FBO partnership with Executive Aviation launching operations at the airport last year. “These facilities are the gateway to London for anyone flying privately into our airport,” said YXU CEO Scott McFadzean in 2024, when the Executive Aviation project broke ground. “Having a premier aviation facility enhances the easy and comfortable airport experience and ensure the best first impression possible when arriving privately at YXU.” The question then is, is there enough demand for two private aviation services in London? FlyXcite CEO Nick Erb seems to think the demand is there, and even indicated the company might be ahead of schedule for potential expansion. “We’re finding more and more our facility is starting to fill up more quickly than expected,” he said. “It’s a time saving for corporations to be able to conduct their business in a short amount of time,” added Roth, “freeing up executive time for other projects.” 

Read more: CTV News London | Newswire

‘Tis the season for voting down housing proposals

The city’s planning committee denied a controversial application to build a 299-unit apartment building at Fanshawe Park Road and Geary Avenue this week. The application, brought to the city by Royal Premier Homes, has elicited major neighbourhood pushback since it was first made public back in 2024 — a community petition essentially argued the development was too dense and inspired the formation of the Stoneybrook for Community First Development group. Its advocacy worked: in a lengthy staff report, city staff recommended refusal of the application, saying it “fails to sufficiently mitigate potential adverse impacts on neighbouring properties,” calling its scale “not appropriate within the surrounding context” and adding “it has not been demonstrated that the development will maintain compatibility with or preserve the character of the lower-order street.” The developer, Royal Premier Homes, argued that it has made sufficient changes in response to community push-back. The whole application will go to a final vote at council on June 23.

The upshot: The rejection itself is maybe less noteworthy than a trend we’ve seen emerge over the past couple months, where city politicians are more eager to engage with community pushback and vote against housing proposals, compared to the prior three year’s of this council’s term when just about any and every housing proposal got the okay. Last year, for instance, council was happy to approve a 4,000-unit development on Pack Road, despite a similar level of community opposition. Ditto for two 2023 developments at Commissioners Road and on Upper Queen Street, which both were approved over significant neighbourhood opposition. But this year, there’s been a couple notable rejections — think back to May, when council rejected a care home on Bluegrass Drive, with councillors citing neighbourhood opposition. After that decision, Deputy Mayor Shawn Lewis speculated that council had started to shift from a very pro-housing stance to one that posturing as more amenable to neighbourhood opposition. “Going down this path that we are going, to reject anything that the public objects to, is a very dangerous path, and a very expensive one when we start racking up legal bills at the Ontario Land Tribunal,” he said. Whether two major wins for opposed neighbours in 2026 is a mere coincidence or the start of a trend that we’ll be seeing right up until election day in the fall remains to be seen.  

Read more: London Free Press

Downtown advocates push to bring Carfax to the core

London officials reportedly met to discuss a plan about making a pitch to Carfax to move the company downtown, a report from The London Free Press said. Mayor Josh Morgan, along with Ward 13 Councillor David Ferreira and Downtown BIA London interim director Vicki Smith, are hoping to make the case that Carfax should consider movings its workforce downtown, following reports last week the company was looking at a move from its current home at 100 Kellogg Lane to Westmount Shopping Centre in 2030 (when their current lease is up), where Farhi Holdings is applying to rezone the mall to include significantly more office space. “We want to see what we can do to get Carfax downtown,” Ferreira told the Free Press. “We want to show them that downtown is a viable space. This is an opportunity we may never see again in our lifetime.” Carfax employs around 600 workers and plans to grow in the coming years.

The upshot: Whoever let the news leak out that Carfax was considering a move out to Westmount might deserve a raise, because they’re the big winner in this at the moment: several years left on their lease at 100 Kellogg, and already the company has (maybe inadvertently, maybe not) kickstarted what amounts to a public bidding war over where it relocates to, if anywhere. The loser, on the other hand, might be Farhi Holdings, which wants to get a rezoning that encompasses more than just the space Carfax might occupy, but now could face political opposition. “I won’t support it,” Ferreira said of the Farhi application to re-zone some of the space at Westmount. “I have not heard Carfax say they will not go downtown. We have the space, we want to help them. We are here for them.” 

Read more: London Free Press

Canadian Urban Institute set to unveil new downtown master plan

One of the more interesting city committee meetings to tune into might be next week’s Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee meeting on Tuesday, where the Canadian Urban Institute is set to give a presentation on its “Downtown Reimagined” plan — a 10-year economic development plan for the city’s core that councillors are being asked by staff to endorse. The $48-million, 10-year plan has a couple bold strokes: it recommends major investments into public green spaces, including a new “River District” concept and suggesting the city lean into its crown jewel public space assets (Victoria Park, Rotary Square, Ivey Park). It also proposes the creation of a Downtown Office with a mandate to implement the plan (and operate with what sounds like at least some distance from council). “Imagine what [downtown] can contribute when vacant buildings are occupied, storefronts are thriving, more residents are living downtown, and investment returns to the core,” said Ward 13 Councillor David Ferreira, voicing support for the plan to The London Free Press. Council is just being asked to “receive” this report at the moment, with the next update to come around Q4 (and thus, next council’s concern).

The upshot: Boiled down, the Canadian Urban Institute plan (it was commissioned a year ago at a cost of $415,000) is pretty simple — invest in what’s working downtown right now and shift away from what’s not. The report suggests river pathways, the nice public parks, and small unique businesses are what’s currently drawing people into the core, and that by investing in them will hopefully kickstart a virtuous cycle of improved liveability leading to improved investment, which leads to improved liveability, and so on. A nice plan if it works, of course. The degree of independence the new Downtown Office will be able to work with might be an interesting sub-plot to the longer project of improving downtown; some would be very happy if the downtown core could operate and direct money without needing to go through the suburbs first. It’s a hopeful report, and contains a lot of things you’d imagine council would do anyways, but it at least gives the next council and city staff a place to start. (Devil’s in the details, etc…).

Read more: London Free Press | CTV News London

Dispatch: June 12, 2026

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

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