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By Goof! Hail. Channel. on" uni!" Waterloo council yester- day voted unanimously to Nicky Abbot (left) and Tina Hay (right) know a good deal when they see one, and you can't miss with a five cent cup of lemon- ade on a hot afternoon. Marty Pemberton of Young St.,Wa- By Howard Elliott Chronicle st." writer Did you know that between 16.000 and 17,000 people are employed by private en- terprise in Waterloo? Or that of the more than 1,000 businesses in this City. 75 per cent or 781 are retail stores or services? Information like that has never been available in organized fashion in Waterloo -- until now. Thanks to the efforts of five students and oney from the federal government. a Emplete bank of pertinent information bout the economic sector of Waterloo will shortly be available, Jeff Snyder. graduate geography student from Wilfrid Laurier University. Judy Waterloo Mayor Marjorie Carroll looks over maps that were part of the econo- mic profile of Waterloo recently completed by a group of students working for - . _. 1“- ,-,,,,,:;, J-_-_A__-_4 (‘2... -l-..--- ...... run..- -- V, --"- - _ _ the chamber of commerce and the City planning department. City planner Paul Dietrich and one of the students. Collin Schuch ate discussing the pro- Natural growth to be manicured.“ manicure a section of the Clair Creek watershed that City Engineer Jim Willis called "an extremely en- Fountain and Gerry Rodrigues, fourth year geography students from the University of Waterloo, Joseph Manion, WLU geography graduate. Colin Schuch, fourth year UW planning student and Janet Griffin, a high school graduate just completed a summer of gathering the information under a pro- gram called Economic Waterloo. . The project was financed to a tune of $8,000 by the federal government. since it qualified as a Young Canada Works pro ject, While the aim of Economic Waterloo was basically simple A to gather information and organize it v the reasons behind the project were considerably more complex. vironmentally sensitive Members of the Beech- wood Park Horned Associa- terloo. was the vendor. Along with lemonade Marty was selling books. games. children's records and assorted other 1tnich- knacks. The lemonade was the top seller though. tion thmudlout the summer months of ms formed dele- gations before Waterloo council pleading tlot the First and foremost, there IS no central up-to-date business registry for Waterloo. The information gathered by the team of students may be used to compile a business registry. The Waterloo Chamber of Commerce must answer questions about local business from the general public, developers con- sidering moving into the city and com- panies considering establishing a branch in Waterloo. According to chamber manager. Jack Middlemass, the information files now being established will make the chamber more viable as a reference cert- tre, The information will also help the chamber "sell" Waterloo to businesses and industries interested in moving in. When a business or industry inquires about the economic situation in the city, the chamber will be able to supply statistics about land use. zoning, construction regulations. floor space use and many other relevant sub jects The information gathered by the Econo [THC Waterloo team will not only be used by the chamber of commerce The City plan- ning department will also use the data ex- tensively when considering planning trends - especially for the downtown area While the students were conducting a door-to-door survey. they also studied areas such as building and property condi- tion in the downtown area, Colin Schuch was one of the team working on the main- tenance survey, and he said that generally the downtown businesses seemed in fair to good condition, ”One of the most important uses of the data gathered will be in the formulation of a proposed forntown, plan. City planner “I doit know if there's potential in the downtown area or not.“ Mr. Dietrich said, adding that there is a lack of information about that part of the city even in the muni- cipal planning department i’arul bietrich hopes tho information will give some idea of the potential of the down- rSon'le of tire statistics gathered by the team may not be of interest to developers and other omlciat sources, but they illustra- Waterloo Chronicle. “My. September tr. 1m - Clair Creek watershed in the area of Columbia St. and Hallman Rd. be left in its natural state. Mr. Willis told Waterloo's businesses occupy about 7,000,000 square feet of floor space. About 40 per cent of that space is used for produc- tion purposes and another 40 per cent is used for office and commercial purposes. Interestingly, the downtown sector of the city contains only 1,800,000 square feet of floor space, Close to 30 per cent of the people em- ployed by private enterprise work in the downtown area, and 28 per cent of the workforce is unionized Leases In Waterloo's downtown range from $1 per square foot to 815 per square foot, while leases outside the core area range from $1.50 to 87.50 per square foot. Two-hundred and thirty eight businesses in Waterloo own the premises on which they are located, while 691 lease space, Leases in the city range from one year to 15 years in length. The 1970's were years of economic growth for Waterloo, according to informa- tion gathered by the Survey team While percentages weren't available. the rate of growth apparently increased in the later part of the decade with retail, business and personal serwee businesses accounting for most of the growth. Another interesting point IS that there is a potential for growth in the city's econo mic structure. Forty-two per cent of the businesses have space for building expan- sion. according to the survey and 36 per cent of the businesses surveyed reported plans for expansion in the next five years Five percent of the firms plan to relocate and si, per Eent of those planning to move plan to do so within Waterloo. Concensus among the students and " licials involved with the project was posi- tive. Chamber president Jack Middlemass praised the students for their proies- sionalism and enthusiasm. The students said they ran into little resistance from merchants while doing the survey. though some were sensitive about areas like ow- nership and parking. “Wé were" asking some pertinent ques tions." Mr. Middlemass said, "about some very delicate areas," comcil that the original de cision to leave the am in its natural state "ham't been departed from very far. Ho- wever a person moving into a $100,000 home isn’t going to appreciate all that rag- weed and goldenrod close to his property.". What the City's adminis- trative committee recom- mended for the site isn't major construction or major maintenance. It will, however, cost the City $5,000 for minor regrading. grad- ing "andyeeding of their land to hermit the property to be machine mowed. According to the sub- division conditions covering. the Monarch and Major Holdings lands. the de- veloper must carry out a “comprehensive landscap- ing plan" within the flood plain area. This fall, approx- imately $30,000 will be spent, and unless the City completes the $5,00tFworth of regrading before the de- veloper's landscaping begins, it may be necessary to mow the ragweed and other "natural growth" by hand. City engineer, Gard Lemon said there is no in- tention to touch the area ad- jacent to the creek. "It is very important that it be left in its natural state." he (Continued on page Al