The City of Summerside announced Thursday that it is purchasing and renovating the former Co-op building at 54 Water St. thanks to a grant from the federal government and will be renting it out to Montreal-based call centre company IO Solutions.
Gallant owns Michael's Pizzeria at 27 Central St., which is across the street from where the new company will be setting up shop. He’s also vice-president of Downtown Summerside, an association of businesses in the area.
He’s happy at the prospect of attracting some new customers and he suspects most of the other business owners in the downtown are of the same mind.
“Anything we can do to entice people to come on down to work in downtown Summerside, it can only help,” he said.
However, he’s also acutely aware that there has been call centres set up shop in Summerside before, not many of which have survived more than a few years of operation.
But hopefully this latest company will buck the trend, he added.
“I’m looking forward to it … hopefully we’ll be able to provide a service for them,” he said.
Pierre Gallant, president of Downtown Summerside, also welcomed the announcement.
“It’s great to see the city take initiative and invest in a (partially) vacant property to attract a new business,” said Gallant.
“We always welcome new jobs in the area.”
@JournalPMacLean
