It’s now just months away before the major construction begins on the thirteen Target Canada store in B.C. 

Ledcor Construction Ltd. has the contract for all thirteen B.C. stores. All the stores have to be finished on the same date.

Target Canada will spend upwards of $11 million on each store’s makeover. The construction is said to begin in October to be ready for opening in the fall of 2013.

Two of the stores are in the Okanagan: the current Zellers in Kelowna and Vernon. The Kelowna store is going to be made wider, expanding out to Springfield Road.

The three remaining stores - Salmon Arm, West Kelowna and Penticton - have not been mentioned in any press release, which would mean they are going to be closed by Zellers. Zellers doesn’t say much these days but I’m sure the company doesn’t want to truck all that merchandise away. When everything started a few months ago there were rumours of major sales to unload the stock in the stores.

The Salmon Arm store will be remodeled into a Canadian Tire store.

The Minneapolis based Target Stores bought 139 Zellers from the Hudson Bay Company. All have to be remodeled. I also believe they purchased a closed Walmart store in Quebec.

Twenty-four of the stores will open in the early part of 2013 and those stores are all in Ontario. Then the second phase of opening includes all the stores in B.C. for Fall of 2013.

Just think of the merchandise that has to be trucked from distribution centres before the stores hit the ground running!

******

Rumours and Things  

Manning Park Resort is in receivership and the "For Sale" sign is up. The resort owes $700,000 in taxes and more than a million to suppliers...

I was walking through the Capital News Centre and got called over to the counter by one of the employees, and was asked a question because he said,  "I have something your readers don’t know."

Frank Zappa has four children with very cool names, and the two most people know is Moon Unit and Dweezil.
The other two are Ahmet Emuuka Rodan and Diva The Muffin Pigeen.

Lucky kids....

When it’s wine festival time, I always think back to one of the first wine festival meetings I attended at the Capri Hotel.

If I remember correctly there were twelve wineries in the valley.  Now the province is producing 17,778 tonnes of grapes; way back when it was 1,478 tonnes for the valley. There are 209 licensed wineries in the province, and the business continues to grow….

This one has been bothering me for months, actually years: Len Lindstrom and his Liberty International Mineral Corp.

This e-mail from a reader:

I noticed today in your online, 'Rumours and Things', 2010, that people cannot get in touch with Len Lindstrom.

I tried the phone number that is still appearing online - and sure enough - a lady answered who is not with Len.  She had the phone number for about 3 weeks.

Can you tell me what you found out about Len? People – including me - have invested money into his organization.

What do we do? Where do we turn for answers?

I don’t what to tell you because in these kinds of schemes, money is always lost, and the perpetrator gone from the scene.

Here is his bio from the old web site:

Len Lindstrom
Director, President, CEO
The founder of Liberty International and has been directly involved in all aspects of the development and exploration of the Liberian and Canadian properties as President and CEO of the Liberty Group of companies since their inception. His related education includes numerous Accelerated Education courses in geology, business administration and associated subjects through BCIT, UBC, SFU and the Sauder School of Business. He has over 30 years experience as an entrepreneur, businessman, promoter and humanitarian.

Now someone out there knows where this guy is. Give me some help, let's see what we can do.

******

I was driving along Gordon Road North just after noon on Tuesday, and everything seemed fine when all of a sudden there was a dark coloured SUV behind me with flashing blue lights pulling me over to the curb.

Two officers got out of the SUV and came to the window. The first one said, “There seems to be something wrong with your rear license plate.”

The other states, “It’s the wrong colour. Your license plate date sticker is missing, the entire sticker has been cut off.”

The first officer steps in after going to the SUV to check if the car is registered and has car insurance. He says it has.

They warned me that I should get to my insurance agent as soon as possible because I’m going to end up with a fine.

I went to the insurance agent and gave her my papers and explained what had happened, and she immediately started to work, and the first thing I had to do was report it stolen.

I asked if this was a normal thing and she said there are quite a lot of them.

It all cost $18 to get a new sticker.

I was surprised at the dark SUV with the blue flashing lights. Is this something new? The officers were in lighter blue uniforms with an RCMP patch; very friendly and helpful.

******

A 24-station Ontario radio network that includes Moose FM is being acquired by Vista Broadcast Group, which currently operates in western Canada.

The parent of Vista Radio will buy Haliburton Broadcasting Group Inc. for an undisclosed price, subject to approval from the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission.

Haliburton operates primarily in Central Ontario but also as far north as Timmins, Ont., and as far south as the Niagara region.

Vista was founded in 2004 by its senior management team and currently has 38 broadcast licenses serving 50 communities in British Columbia, Alberta and the Northwest Territories, making the move into Ontario with financial backing from Westerkirk Capital Inc., which will buy all the shares of Vista Broadcast Group Inc. that aren't owned by Vista's management.

Vista Radio CEO and president Margot Micallef said Haliburton's business in Ontario provides a base for further expansion.

"With our strong management team and our new partnership with Westerkirk we are well positioned to see our vision for Vista become a reality. Quite simply, we want to become the pre-eminent radio broadcaster in Canada," Micallef said.

"Vista cares in the same way as Haliburton about its employees, listeners and advertisers. Vista will take our radio business to the next level and that will create tremendous opportunities for our employees."

The Mann family were right there from the beginning and capture an FM license for Kelowna The Juice..

Until now, Micallef’s group has operated solely along the west coast of Canada with 38 broadcast licenses in B.C., Alberta and the Northwest Territories.

I believe the amount involved here is $27 million.