Beachman Electric Bikes, Built For The Good Life – built in the Junction

The Financial Post newspaper has a great article on this Junction company which builds electric motorcycles and if you see one of these motorcycles on the streets of Toronto, you can get excited they look great and exciting all the well-being rather minimal and clean in design.

1st of of interest, how the Financial Post, describes the Junction. From the  Financial Post article,

In an industrial garage tucked into a neighbourhood of narrow row houses, big-box stores and former stockyards in Toronto’s West End, the startup Beachman Motor Co. Ltd. is operating a scaled-down assembly plant and building hundreds of all-electric retro-1960s-style motorcycles every year.

The company is able to operate in one of Canada’s most expensive areas – Toronto, because it imports nearly all of its motorcycle parts from factories in China, then assembles them locally using only a dozen or so employees—a skeleton crew compared to other vehicle assembly plants in the country, as it was reported in the  Financial Post, yet the Junction cost effective industrial space must also be a factor.

Original Article: This article is an excellent read, offering insightful and intuitive commentary from the company’s founders.

The company assembles its electric bikes at the original Marathon Development Corporation’s bi-level intermodal centre. Marathon was the development arm of the Canadian Pacific Railroad Ltd, and for many years the site was used as a bulk transfer hub, moving materials from rail to truck for intercity delivery at ground level.

Later for many years, the CNCP Telecommunications company operated out of one of the units on the north side of the building, which now faces the Home Depot. Maclean’s magazine also had its fulfillment centre nearby, in the same area, similarly facing the Home Depot.

Sandler Furniture had a long term use of one the units for there furniture and Tv rental business they operated in the Junction on Dindas St. W. at Keele St. Phantom Hosiery had is main factory at 207 Weston Rd, operated a warehouse at the centre for a period.

It is encouraging to see another innovative company take over this Junction site, demonstrating that the area still has the capacity to support emerging businesses—especially those with strong technical innovation and effective marketing.