Growth, safety concerns push Flame & Comfort to seek new home

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This article was published 13/09/2024 (453 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Freestanding fireplaces, fireplaces in walls. Dwayne Bennett passes fireplace after fireplace, through spaces set up like rooms in a house, to an entrance showcasing more fireplaces.

He has roughly a year to walk the same track through Flame & Comfort. By next summer, the business will have moved from its long-standing building on the 300 block of Logan Avenue.

To where, Bennett isn’t sure, but it’s moving.

The 52-year-old enterprise has sold its wares on the west edge of Winnipeg’s Chinatown neighbourhood for three decades. Bennett, the owner, believes a move is necessary for a couple reasons: the company is growing — as are safety concerns.

Over the past nine years, Flame & Comfort’s distribution branch has tripled or quadrupled its sales, he estimated.

There’s a 4,500-square-foot warehouse across the street, but it’s not enough to fill the retailer’s needs.

“I’m very happy with our business and the way that we’ve grown it over the time I’ve been here,” Bennett said.

The company services upwards of 20 dealers across Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Ontario. It sees foot traffic in its 5,000-sq.-ft. showroom — and the COVID-19 pandemic brought a spike in sales — so the new hub will have a physical store for shoppers.

However, the showroom space will likely be halved while the warehouse expands, Bennett explained. The Logan Avenue lease expires next June; Flame & Comfort is currently looking at different locations.

Moving sales will occur over the next nine months. Bennett is looking at properties outside its current home area in the Centennial neighbourhood.

“(This is) not the kind of environment that I want to have for our retail location,” Bennett said.

He said he has noticed a change: more people living on the street, drug usage altering people’s mannerisms, more garbage. Several downtown Winnipeg shelters, doing “fantastic work,” are nearby, Bennett noted.

He and a handful of employees come to work daily and are used to the area, Bennett said. Customers show up regularly, but the number calling and asking questions about safety has increased.

A couple streets away, a space once housing Oriental Market sits empty. The grocer left the site two years ago.

Ben Lee, past-president of the Winnipeg Chinese Cultural & Community Centre, is focusing on this weekend’s Chinatown night market. More revitalization work must be done in the area, Lee said.

“We have to start somewhere,” the volunteer added, noting the night market is a change catalyst.

He’s hopeful increasing residential populations, in-person classes at Red River College Polytechnic and an in-development Market Lands will boost the area.

As the number of residents grows, companies will want to stay, he said.

“Businesses move for a multitude of reasons. It’s rare that it’s a singular, ‘This is the only reason why we’re moving,’” said Loren Remillard, president of the Winnipeg Chamber of Commerce. “Crime is a factor, and one that we’re seeing more and more of.”

He referenced the 7-Eleven convenience store chain, which is rumoured to be closing several sites across Winnipeg due to theft.

Social interventions to support people in crisis must be balanced with support for neighbourhood businesses and residents, Remillard said.

Marion Willis, executive director of St. Boniface Street Links, is calling for an approach to end homelessness “leaving no one behind.”

A plan incorporating various parties — from police to landlords to relevant non-profits — is necessary, she said.

gabrielle.piche@winnipegfreepress.com