Mayor's Breakfast

Wednesday, 16 April 2014 11:18

Ingersoll Mayor Ted Comiskey jokingly promised lots of "hot air" for the crowd who gathered Wednesday at the Elm Hurst.

INGERSOLL -- According to Ingersoll Mayor Ted Comiskey, there was a time when it could be said that his town was not "open for business." He was busy touting recent successes at his annual Mayor's breakfast Wednesday at the Elm Hurst Inn and Spa, hosted by the Ingersoll District Chamber of Commerce.

For the roughly 70 in attendance, Comiskey spoke about the town's need to improve retail trades jobs, but also added Ingersoll needs to increase its population.

"We have a builders group and we have existing developers within the Town of Ingersoll and outside the builders group themselves that are really looking at developing areas."

One of Comiskey's main directions is trying to fulfill the residential desire to attract more retail stores. He says demonstrated growth on the town's residential side looks to be the driver to attract that kind of commercial growth and the interest is already there to build the community to accommodate.

"We have sub-division plans that are coming across the counter all the time. Certainly as far as building permits go we have an increase right now of twice as many building permits as we had last year at this time."

Even despite a cold and snowy winter, builders in the town have seen an excellent start to 2014. Single-detached home permits are up 50% from the previous December to March period. With a number of permit applications already in for April, the town's economic development newsletter reads, "all signs point to the strong start continuing well into the summer."

Comiskey says he wants to continue to grow the town's population to show Ingersoll is open for business.

"We know if you can get a large residential base -- if you can increase your residential base, then that brings with it a lot of commercial people coming around and kicking the tires and saying, '...Okay, what is in Ingersoll? What is its population?'"

With building permits up this year, and a town re-brand now more visible than ever with updated signage and an online revamp, Comiskey says the next challenge in attracting growth is getting industrial land that's usable to entice further development.

Comiskey also touched on the Walker landfill proposal, calling at an "ongoing saga" which has resulted in four trips personally for him to Queen's Park.

He also discussed lab outsourcing from Alexandra Hospital slated for this July and savings in the policing agreement with OPP.

A snapshot on numbers from the 2011 national census provided by the town puts Ingersoll's population at 12,146.

The average home price is $189,108 with Ingersoll having an average earning wage of $54,215. Comiskey also repeated how the town's unemployment rate, well under 5%, bests both the county, provincial and national average.