Room to grow for new businesses in Prince Albert

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“One that just recently opened here in our downtown core is the Sunday Eve Bridal Atelier, and what a unique and great addition to our community to have that. It’s just helped really create a corridor within our downtown core of what’s available for bridal services. You can almost make one stop shopping just coming downtown Prince Albert for that.” 

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With the likes of Ted Matheson Menswear for groomsmen attire, Delicate Petals for event planning and rentals, Sentiments Flowers for flowers and decor, Bocian Jewelers, and multiple places downtown to host events, suddenly the addition of a bridal shop has helped complete a group of businesses in downtown Prince Albert to get a ton of wedding planning and shopping done in one place.  

Hughes believes more new businesses can do that in Prince Albert, they just need to plan to grow their business at the right speed. Hughes said that a common mistake for a lot of businesses is trying to go too big too soon, when so much of Prince Albert’s business community thrives off of smaller businesses. 

“A lot of the backbone of our economy are our small and medium businesses, right? They don’t have to be big ones necessarily. Yes, that draws in something, but also some of our smaller ones too. A nice lady’s wear store is something that is definitely lacking in our area, and I do know that a few people have been exploring that and that would be a great asset to our community.” 

In fact, businesses that try to shoot to big are often one of the biggest problems to the local economy. If you were to start a business tomorrow, you might have a problem finding workers to fill those positions. 

“This is what we get across from all of our businesses, whether you’re starting or an existing business, is our skill shortage labor market. That seems to be a real challenge is finding the right people to make the business move forward and grow.” 

It’s a problem that other centres around the province are dealing with, and it’s something the Chamber can do is to advocates the provincial and federal governments to improve at. 

“Our government is working on that. There’s career and immigration and this is just not something that’s unique to Prince Albert. This is across the province for sure that you see a lot that with the businesses is finding the right skill set to help the businesses grow.”  

When asked if there’s one thing missing from Prince Albert’s business scene, Hughes said she really wants to see a fine dining restaurant of some kind. 

“One thing that would be really a great asset in this Prince Albert you hear about all the time is finding a high-end nice dining restaurant. We had a great one here prior to COVID, and so I feel that our market is really missing that.” 

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nick.nielsen@pattisonmedia.com