The Nanoose First Nation Economic Development Corp. has agreed to erect a 20,000-square-foot modular warehouse, Hostetter said.
“We feel very confident that this is going to go forward,” she said Friday. “If it helps business on Vancouver Island, and allows business to scale up with online sales, then we believe that it’s going to be a win-win for everybody.”
When the pandemic hit last year, Hostetter’s organization looked at ways to help area companies and discovered that, with fewer customers coming through the doors as a result of new health measures, nearly all of them were looking to start selling their products online. “So what we did is we helped businesses through that challenge.” But as the weeks passed, local businesses ran into problems such as supply-chain gaps, high shipping costs and lack of warehouse space for storing merchandise.