WhiteWater West rides the wave of the cross-cultural appeal of waterparks.
The Richmond company announced last week that it would build a new waterpark at the Changzhou China Dinosaur Park in Jiangsu province as part of Richmond Day celebrations at the Canada Pavilion at the Shanghai World Expo.
CEO Geoff Chutter also confirmed to BIV that WhiteWater West had just closed another deal with an existing but significant park in Shenzhen.
The Chinese market is nothing new for WhiteWater West, which has been doing business in mainland China since 1990.
October 5-11
A Vancouver-based startup is convinced that biocoal could revolutionize B.C.’s burgeoning wood pellet sector, but industry experts say the technology remains unproven.
A few weeks ago, an obscure company known as Global Bio-Coal Energy Inc. burst onto the bioenergy scene with news that it planned to build a $22 million biocoal production plant in Terrace.
Global CEO John Bennett said the facility would be a world first, and there could be as many as “30 or more of these plants operating in the province within the next three years.”
October 5-11
The ambitious profit-driven mandate of a development corporation owned by the City of Surrey has members of the Lower Mainland development community crying foul at what they perceive is unfair competition from the public sector.
Leading the calls for Surrey City Development Corp. (SCDC) to take a step back in its land development dealings in Surrey is the Urban Development Institute (UDI), which claims SCDC is in a conflict of interest and has an unfair advantage because it was created and is wholly owned by the city.
“You effectively have a group of people acting as a regulator for the rest of the industry,” said Jeff Fischer, the UDI’s deputy executive director. “At the same time, they’re competing with it.”
October 12-18
Ottawa’s decision to slash a 25% tariff on imported cargo ships, tankers and ferries is a “double-edged sword” for B.C. ship owners and shipbuilders, according to one of the province’s largest shipyard and fleet operators.
“The way the 25% duty was set up in the past was really a penalty for ship owners,” said Jonathan Whitworth, CEO of the Washington Marine Group. “It wasn’t an incentive for them to build in Canada.”
WMG operates Seaspan, Seaspan Coastal Intermodal, Vancouver Drydock Ltd., Vancouver Shipyards Co. Ltd. and Victoria Shipyards Co. Ltd.
October 12-18
The economic downturn and resulting sluggish real estate market have whipped up unjustified fears about the viability of new Vancouver real estate projects, according to the CEO of Delta Land Development Ltd.
Bruce Langereis, who is renovating the historic Hotel Georgia and building a 50-storey tower behind the hotel at the northwest corner of Howe and Georgia streets, believes that a steady stream of media coverage about the empty “ghost town” that is the Millennium Water development has unfairly added to the anxiety and made some buyers unnecessarily skittish.
“It’s a mistake to generalize about real estate,” he said. “What’s happening in downtown and Coal Harbour is not the same as what’s happening at the Olympic Village.”
October 19-25
Expanding international air access to B.C. is a larger issue for the province than the diplomatic dispute that erupted between the federal government and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) last week over Canadian landing rights, according to provincial Transportation Minister Shirley Bond.
Ottawa’s unwillingness to agree to new landing rights that would expand access to Canadian airports for UAE-based Emirates Airlines and Etihad resulted in the eviction of Canadian Forces from Camp Mirage, a Persian Gulf military base used to support military operations in Afghanistan.
October 19-25
More than half of the province’s natural resource revenue comes from a region most British Columbians rarely, if ever, visit, and experts say Vancouver’s business community is missing out on its huge economic opportunities.
Most Vancouverites see northeast B.C. as a vast tract of land with little or no business potential; Canada’s biggest oil and gas companies see much more. In fact, northeast politicians and business leaders say their “forgotten” corner of the province has more in common with Alberta than it does with B.C. Senator Richard Neufeld, a northeast resident and B.C.’s former energy minister, said the relationship between business communities in Vancouver and Fort St. John is almost non-existent.
October 26-November 1
Multigraphics Ltd. isn’t the largest printing shop in town, but most Vancouverites are likely familiar with its large-scale work.
The North Vancouver company created the huge Canadian flag that was wrapped around downtown Vancouver’s Hotel Georgia earlier this year during the hotel’s renovation. It also created much of the flowing Olympic ad work that covered the inside and outside of Olympic venues and many other parts of Vancouver during the 2010 Games.
The large-scale advertising that adorned the city during the Games reflected advertising’s move to bigger and brighter; and Multigraphics sees its niche as being the print shop that can deliver any print job.
October 26-November 1