At 11 a.m. on a Wednesday there’s a line-up of six people at the MXC Racing and Off-Road shop on Franklin Avenue, which sells quads, snowmobiles, and does vehicle upgrades.

A sign by the door informs patrons that Syncrude staff gift certificates are only accepted with employee ID.

On a pillar opposite that sign is another explaining that the shop will close on long weekends.

Owner Colleen Tatum and her husband Adam recently cut back to 60 hours a week, but they could be open and busy 24 hours, seven days a week.

“We could probably be doing three-times the business,” she says, “but we don’t have the space or the staff to do it.”

Born and raised in Fort McMurray, she loves the booming northern city and doesn’t want to leave, but business opportunities will play into any future decisions, she says. Right now, there’s a “real crisis” in retail. Rents are increasing from an average of $20 per square foot to $50, she says.

“Unless you are also selling to Syncrude or Suncor,” she says “you can’t just offer normal services to the public.”

High demand for retail space has pushed up prices. The population of Fort McMurray has gone from about 45,000 to 65,000 people in the past five years. In the whole regional municipality of Wood Buffalo, there were 89,167 people in 2007, and that’s not even counting the shadow population in work camps.

Still, very little commercial land has been added to Fort McMurray,  says Chamber of Commerce vice-president Ted Doleman.

The River Pointe strip mall in the downtown is closing to make way for a condo development.

When Acree Design owner Vi Marten heard that, she decided it was a good time to retire. The Tall Cree woman from Fort Vermilion will close her alternations and custom wedding apparel shop.

“There’s no place for a small business in Fort McMurray,” she says. “We’re being squeezed out.”

Spoiled Rotten, a hair and nail salon in the same strip mall is staying in business, but they are moving out of downtown and into the suburbs.

The chamber has asked the city for more mixed residential and commercial areas, condos with retail on the bottom for example, so that the much needed housing doesn’t completely usurp businesses.

And it’s not just a downtown problem, as business isn’t blooming in the suburbs either.

Doleman estimates that 15,000 people have moved into Timberlea, a suburb in the north west, but only one additional grocery store has been added into the community.

The province did recently open up more land for development just south of Fort McMurray in the Saline Creek area, but even there Doleman says the province has not included enough commercial areas. This poor planning means residents lack services, and the business community is stunted, he says.

“Citizens want a diverse economy,” he says. “They want local services and they want their children to be able to find work in the community.”

 abrunschot@see.greatwest.ca