3 - Sunday, July 3, 1990 - North Shore News Japanese investors form joint company with N. Van businesses NORTH VANCOUVER subsea companies Can-Dive Ser- vices Ltd. and International Hard Suits Inc. kave joined with a Cocuitlam company and two Japanese investors to form a joint venture company to sell products and services to the Asian market. “They’re trying to take the peaks and valleys from production scheduies of small companies.”’ said International Hard Suit: Inc. (EHS) sales manager Scott Mor- Newisuit, a revolutionary rigid deep-sea diving suit that provides rison. ‘The Japanese are willing protection from extreme pressures to put money into B.C. subsea experienced in deep waters. A companies and they will buy stuff newly developed thruster pack turns the single atmosphere suit into a One-man submarine. on speculation and sell it.”’ IHS! manufactures the $300,000 Can-Dive provides specialized diving services and has also devel- oped an array of sophisticated subsea products, The joint venture, Subsea Systems (B.C.) Ltd., was an- nounced Thursday by provincial International Business Minister Elwood Veitch. Formation of the joint venture was facilitated by the B.C. Trade Development Corp. The Japanese investors are Toyama Diving Ser- vices Co. Ltd. and Fuji Co. Ltd. The new company has secured $30 million in confirmed long- term orders for Coquitlam-based Orcatron Manufacturing Ltd. Or- catron produces wireless under- water communication systems. Meanwhile, Morrison expects IHSI to benefit with similar long- term contracts as a result of its association ‘with the joint venture. The first production unit of the $500,000 Newtsuit-thruster pack configuration will be delivered to a Japanese client next week. The order was placed before the joint venture was formed. “We will probably see the next orders going through this new company. We feel that these guys could possibly do a five to 10-suit order. That's what they want to do, Jarger orders,'’ Morrison said. “We're very pleased. The trading company has the money so they don’t have to have 4 customer tight away. We'll have steady orders.”* Subsea Systems is 60 per cent owned by B.C. subseas industry members and 30 per cent owned by the Japanese participants. Production and development of the subsea technology involved in the deal will remain in B.C. N. Shore company gets limo licence LIMOUSINE SERVICE WILL MEET GROWING DEMAND THE MOTOR Carrier Commission (MCC) has approved an application from the new owners of North Vancouver’s Sunshine Cabs Ltd. to operate a Lower Mainland limou- sine service. Sunshine spokesman Jim Diana ' said the new company, Sunshine ' Limousine, will be run separately from Sunshine Cabs and should be in operation by the end of June or early July. He said the MCC approval was the culmination of ‘‘eight ycars of dreaming. Now it's our chance to show how it’s done and done right.’” Under the terms of its licence, Sunshine Limousine’s vehicles will be permitted to carry up to eight passengers. Most taxi cabs are restricted to carrying five passen- gers. Diana said the larger seating capacity of limousines makes them attractive to corporate clients und increasingly popular as an altsr- Native means of transport for businesses and people attending special functions. Because they are hired at an hourly rate that ranges from ap- proximately $45 up to $75, Diana said limousines can, in some cases, be cheaper than cabs. He added that local limousine users range from grads to film in- dustry people to corporations. Thus far Sunshine has licences to operate three stretch limou- sines, and Diana said the company will likely begin operation with three before making any decision to expand further. Affluence & [nfluence... .20 Gary Bannerman........ 9 Classified Ads..........37 Comics.............. 32 Fashion ......... ween 13 High Tech........... ..33 Miss Manners..........30 Bob Hunter............ 4 Municipal Affairs.......12 Spirituahy Speaking.....17 Travel .... What's Going On. Sunday, cloudy with sunny periods. High 20, Low 10. Monday, cloudy with sunny periods. Tuesday, sunny. Second Class Registration Nuw der 3885 By TIMOTHY RENSHA Managing Editor The cars range in price from $30,000 up to $80,000. Sunshine took delivery of its first limousine late last week. The company will initially hire up to 12 new drivers for Sunshine’s limousine service. Diana said Sunshine applied for the limousine service because of the growing demand for limou- sines in the Lower Mainland. Sunshine Cabs, he said, gets at least a half dozen calls per day from customers wanting to hire limousines. “There is definitely a need for the service,”’ he said. And while he emphasized that Sunshine Cabs will remain an en- tirely separate entity from Sun- shine Limousine, Diana added that the cab company, with its Cadillac service, helped pave the way for wider public acceptance of such higher quality transporta- tion services as limousines. There are approximately 20 limousine services of various sizes currently operating in the Lower Mainland area, Mohinder Sull, vice-president for Sunshine Cabs and Sunshine Limousine, said the limousine operation was an exciting new venture for Sunshine. NEWS photo Stuart Davis LETTING the Sunshine in...Sunshine Lintousines marketing representative Jim Diana (foreground) and company general manager Herb Latreille welcome the arrival of Sunshine’s first stretch Cadillac limousine. The North Vancouver company “:ceatly had its application approved to operate a limousine service in the Lower Mainland. “It’s time the North Shore had them,”’ he said. Sunshine Cabs initiated the first Lower Mainland area Cadillac taxi service in 1982 after receiving a 25-licence luxury cab service on the North Shore. It was founded by a group of North Shore sesidents, but the company wa. aold Feb. 1 to a group of Lower Mainland businessmen. The sale provided Sunshine with a new injection of capital and new aspirations. LGH expansion proposal calls for construction of a tunnel LIONS GATE Hospita! {LGH) officials are now proposing to build a tunnel underneath St. Andrews Avenue as pait of the hospital’s $130-million master plan. Approved June 20 by the LGH board of directors at the hospital’s annual general meeting, the plan Originally proposed to block off St. Andrews Avenue between [3th and [5th streets. But LGH’s planning committee trecommended to the board that a tunnel be built instead. When the master plan was first unveiled two weeks ago, LGH president Robert Smith said St. Andrews Avenue would have to be blocked off so the hospital could build an open area complete with trees, courtyards and flower gardens. But last week Smith admitted the proposed area would probably have to be reduced. By SURJ RATTAN News Revorter “We would compromise that campus feeling by not closing off St. Andrews,’’ Smith told the News. ‘‘We will approach the city to go underneath St. Andrews." While Smith conceded that blocking off St. Andrews Avenue could become a contentious issue with both area residents and North Vancouver City Council, he said he does not know what the reaction will be to building a tun- nel instead of closing off the street. The tunnel would be used for underground parking. The hospi- tal’s master plan calls for increas- ing the total number of hospital parking spaces from 575 to a ‘minimum’ 937. “" don’t know if that will make things easier or not. It appeared to us that we could achieve most of our plan without closing the street,’ Smith said. He added that the tunnel plan might end up affecting some of the houses in the St. Andrews area, but he added that the hospi- tal owns most of those houses. The LGH master plan, which was chronicled in the June '7 News, also calls for the replace- ment of LGH’s activation build- ing. The structure was opened in 1928 as the North Vancouver Generai Hospital and is consid- ered by some to be a heritage site. Present plans call for building a new acute-care tower on the ac- tivation building site. In total, the master plan, which has been three years in the mak- ing, calls for the addition of 400,000 square feet to the LGH site at a cost of $130 million in 1990 dollars. The plan would take an estimated 10 years to complete. Smith said he has not received any public reaction to the master plan since it was made public last week. But he added that most people understand that the hospi- tal has to expand in order to meet the future health-care needs of the North Shore, He added that LGH_ officials will now meet with North Van- couver City staff to discuss the procedures needed for changing the city’s official community plan and rezoning changes, which will be needed before the master plan can be implemented.