Bill Hole has a lot on the line and it's got him scared … and excited.
The local businessman has been riding a pendulum between fear and excitement since work began on the Enjoy Centre, the new 242,000-sq.-ft. facility taking shape between Riel Drive and Ray Gibbon Drive. As the general manager and CEO of Hole's Greenhouses & Gardens, Hole has seen his life consumed by the project, while feeling a constant tug in two directions at once.
"Some days it's tremendously exciting and other days it's very, very scary," said Hole, who runs the business along with his wife Val and brother Jim.
The new facility isn't just a new location for Hole's but a new business model the Holes say has never been done before, a combination of garden centre, banquet space and various boutique-style businesses.
As the family's vision has taken shape, all the members have worked hard to stay on an even keel, knowing that getting too excited would dilute the common sense required to make sound decisions. On the other hand, feeling too much fear would be paralyzing. And you can't have that when you're writing the next chapter of a family legacy.
Seeds of change
The family began to realize about five years ago that the garden centre business was maturing, and if they wanted to stay in the game, they would have to change. The question was, did they want to stay in the game?
"I've had several people say to me … 'are you nuts?'" Bill said. "'Take the money, cash out and go some other place.'"
"We've talked about that philosophy, take the money and retire and go golf the rest of your life," Jim acknowledged. "You know what … that's not part of our legacy."
Most people know that Hole's began with Ted and Lois, parents of Bill and Jim, selling vegetables from the roadside. The business evolved into a popular greenhouse and garden centre with Lois' rise as a gardening author and commentator. (She eventually became Alberta's lieutenant-governor.)
The legacy of the Hole family is a big reason why its current leaders are choosing to overhaul the business.
"If there was no history, who knows?" Bill said.
The family feels the business is at a crossroads, a situation very similar to the time back in the 1970s when they got out of vegetables and focused on being a garden centre. This year, sometime in November, they will move from their outdated facility on Bellerose Drive to a cutting edge landmark in Riel Park.
"I'm sure we'll have a lot of customers who are initially very sad to see us move," Val said. "But in the long run I think they'll be really excited and happy with what we're moving to."
The vision
In Europe, it's typical for garden centres to have a café. The Holes wanted to move in that direction too, but also take it much further to provide visitors with an experience rather than just goods that can be bought anywhere.
The vision that's evolved includes a production greenhouse and retail centre, as well as a café, a spa and wellness centre, a wine store, bakery and a grocery market. The greenhouse will also be available for banquets at certain times of the year.
It's been a tough vision to explain to the public, peers and financiers.
"We're getting a lot of people now starting to say, 'Okay, this makes sense,' but it's probably taken three times the amount of work that I expected just to get people to understand the vision," Bill said.
"We have to take responsibility, I take responsibility for being a little bit … arrogant about the idea that people would understand this project as easily as we did," he added.
"It could be arrogance and naïveté," Val said.
As the family's public relations and marketing person, Jim has been delivering presentations throughout western Canada, spreading the word about the facility. Its reputation has reached as far as Australia.
"I feel kind of like the ShamWow guy," he joked before launching an update at a St. Albert breakfast back in June.
Meanwhile, Bill has been behind the scenes working an endless string of meetings with architects, consultants, municipal leaders, bankers and potential clients for lease space.
"I've never had more meetings in all my life," he said.
Bill attends the weekly meetings on site, where the architect, general contractor and various engineers discuss issues that need attention and plan for the upcoming stages of building. It's a whirlwind of technical details that illustrates the intricate juggling required to produce a multi-million dollar facility.
"I can tell you right now, this is a mind numbing thing. If you can't make decisions, you'll be paralyzed," Bill said.
"You're going through all these ups and downs and you have to keep making these decisions. You hope you make more good than you make bad," he added.
"He's wired 24/7," Val said. "He goes to bed sitting at the computer or talking on the phone and he's often up at 5:30 in the morning."
When the project was in its early stages, there were exciting milestones to signal that the vision was becoming a reality, events like signing the construction contract and breaking ground. But even these events contained an element of fear.
"The first significant one is when you sign a cheque that looks like your phone number," Bill said. "You walk out of the room with wobbly legs."
Dollars and stress
The cost and the debt it's brought is one of the scariest aspects of the project, said Val.
The family is no longer publicly sharing the price tag for the venture, which was projected at $15 million three years ago and $25 million last year. Chuckles pass between the Holes at the fond recollection of that figure.
Getting a bank loan to finance the project was very difficult, mostly because there's no proven business model for the combination of businesses they're bringing together, they said. But after intense scrutiny and fine-tuning of the vision, bank financing is now in place. The Holes, who are firmly planted in middle age, are investing plenty of their own money and taking on debt like never before.
"You gotta step up and you've got to lay it on the line," Jim said. "That's the way it is."
"We're in the deepest debt we've ever been in our whole lives, at this stage of our lives," said Val, "so if it doesn't go, we're in trouble."
