Waterdown, Ontario
What Waterdown is made of: the communities whose institutions are here, the sectors its 472 businesses sit in, the franchises already on the ground, and the services a newcomer could start.
472 businesses on file · 90 trades · 33 sectors · registry population 24,400 · built from geonet.hamilton on 2026-10-07
Visiting rather than moving? The free guidebook for Waterdown → — the free guidebook for this region: why go, what to see, what is open when it rains.
The local economy
What the business base is made of, what it is specialised in against the national pattern, and what that mix implies. This is the part a development office would read first.
Composition, not health. geonet records what trades exist and where; it does not record formation, closure, employment or revenue, so none of those appear here. What makes this economics rather than a directory is the NAICS coding: it lets the local mix be read against the BLS survival curves and against the 323 industry groups this research has screened.
Every industry group on this page links through to its NAICS page, and to the screened market report where this research has one — that is what the trait-to-NAICS coding buys.
What this city is specialised in
Location quotient is this city's share of a trade divided by the same share across 10 CA metro tables. Above 1.25 is the conventional threshold for a local specialisation.
Thin against the national pattern
Common trades that are under-represented here. For someone deciding what to open, this is the more useful half of the table — though a gap can mean unmet demand or a market that does not work here, and this does not tell you which.
The base against the entry screen
Businesses by the entry signal of the industry group they sit in, from the /markets screen. A large "structure decides" share means most local trades are ones where being better than the incumbent does not by itself win. A trade is matched to the screened record at whatever level the research wrote it — the same code, a broader one, or a narrower one. Where a group holds several screened sub-markets the count is shown, because no single one of them speaks for the whole group.
How to read the survival figure
Each sector's five-year establishment survival rate, weighted by how many of this city's businesses sit in that sector. It is a property of the MIX, not of these businesses — it says what survival this composition would imply at US private-sector rates, because no Canadian equivalent series exists.
Weighted over 98.6% of the coded base — public administration carries no curve. Source: Business Employment Dynamics — Table 7, Survival of private sector establishments by opening year, US Bureau of Labor Statistics.
And what it does not measure
A "mixed" trait is one that genuinely spans codes — "computers" covers systems design, repair and supply. The clear share is how much of this reading rests on unambiguous coding. Business density also reflects how completely the directory covers a place, not only how many businesses are in it — so it compares poorly between a city the register knows well and one it does not.
Who lives here, and who the city is for
The census: the only figures on this page that count people rather than businesses, and the three cohort readings they make possible.
No census subdivision is mapped for ca-waterdown in local/census-map.json, so this page carries no census figures. The mapping is kept explicit because Canada has several places called London, Toronto and Kelowna, and attaching the wrong one would put another city's demographics on this page.
The communities the register shows
A community appears in the business register before it appears in prose — a national church, a society, a credit union, a newspaper. Those are counted as institutions, and they are what suggests residents. A restaurant serving a cuisine is counted separately as trade, because every city has those and they say nothing about who lives nearby. The ranking is by institutions.
| Community | Institutions | Worship | Trade | Where it shows |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chinese | — | — | 1 | |
| Greek | — | — | 1 | |
| Dutch | — | — | 1 |
What the city is made of
Every business on file, grouped by the sector it trades in. This is the economic-development view: where the 472 businesses actually are, and the specific trades inside each sector.
| Sector | Businesses | Share | What is in it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Retail | 33 | 7% | department store (8) · antiques (6) · jeweler (4) · gifts (4) · greenhouse (4) · flowers (3) · photography (2) · convenience (2) |
| Beauty | 33 | 7% | hair stylist (18) · dentist (9) · barber (2) |
| Construction | 28 | 5.9% | roofing (5) · home builder (4) · heating and cooling (4) · electrician (4) · plumbing (3) · carpet (3) · concrete (2) · excavating (1) |
| Living | 26 | 5.5% | place of worship (9) · cleaning (3) · daycare (3) · veterinary (3) · apartment (2) · swimming pools (1) · laundry (1) · furniture (1) |
| Dining | 25 | 5.3% | restaurant (12) · fast food (6) · pizza (4) · pubs (1) · steakhouse (1) · diner (1) |
| Living & Home | 25 | 5.3% | |
| Health | 25 | 5.3% | physician (5) · chiro (4) · medical clinic (4) · pharmacy (3) · optical (3) · fitness club (1) · health foods (1) |
| Business | 17 | 3.6% | accounting (7) · government (4) · consulting (3) · association (1) · auction (1) |
| Automotive | 17 | 3.6% | autos (8) · auto repair (4) · landscaping (1) · auto parts (1) |
| Finance | 15 | 3.2% | insurance (8) · bank (3) |
| Agribusiness | 14 | 3% | landscaping (12) · irrigation (2) |
| Education | 11 | 2.3% | school (8) · library (2) · garden (1) |
| Entertainment | 10 | 2.1% | games (4) · music instruments (3) · amusement (2) |
| Food & Beverage | 9 | 1.9% | fruit (1) |
| Logistics | 8 | 1.7% | packaging (2) · towing (1) · truck transportation (1) |
| Retail Goods | 7 | 1.5% | |
| Travel | 7 | 1.5% | travel agent (3) · motel (2) · bnb (1) |
| Athletic Sports | 6 | 1.3% | |
| Energy | 6 | 1.3% | fuel (3) · petroleum (2) · pipelines (1) |
| Realty | 5 | 1.1% | real estate (4) · bank (1) |
The franchises already here
Brands from a register of 2,024 franchise systems, matched into this city by name. A high count is a signal in both directions: the territory works, and it may be taken.
10 of these brands are a single common word — Metro, Avenue, Budget — so their counts include businesses that merely share the word. They are marked rather than dropped.
| Brand | Category | Here | Worldwide |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2-4-1 Pizza | pizza | 1 | 100 |
| Bargain Shop | retail | 1 | 165 |
| Circuit City | retail | 1 | 600 |
| Color Your World | retail | 1 | 98 |
| Curves For Women | fitness | 1 | 10,000 |
| Dairy Queen | fastfood | 1 | 5,900 |
| Furniture Medic | specialty | 1 | 600 |
| Mr. Sub | deli | 1 | 475 |
| Oxford Learning | school | 1 | 140 |
| Pet Valu | pet | 1 | 300 |
| Pizza Delight | pizza | 1 | 108 |
| Pizza Hut | pizza | 1 | 10,000 |
| Rogers Video | video | 1 | 300 |
| Royal Bank | bank | 1 | — |
| Royal Canadian Legion | club | 1 | 160 |
| Shoppers Drug Mart | pharmacy | 1 | 927 |
| Source by Circuit City | retail | 1 | 950 |
| Tim Hortons | coffee | 1 | 2,890 |
| Limited name only | retail | 4 | — |
| Manor name only | retail | 3 | — |
| YMCA name only | fitness | 2 | — |
| Cartier name only | retail | 1 | — |
| CIBC name only | bank | 1 | — |
| Coach name only | luggage | 1 | — |
| LCBO name only | spirits | 1 | 600 |
| SAAN name only | retail | 1 | 140 |
| Sears name only | inc | 1 | 2,300 |
| Sobeys name only | supermarket | 1 | 224 |
Real estate as a local trade
Four unrelated jobs share the name: selling existing homes, owning and letting them, managing them for someone else, and building new ones. For anyone weighing a move or a licence these are the counts — and the ownership question goes to /property, which answers it building by building.
Real estate is a local job market in its own right, and four unrelated trades get the same name. Counts are businesses filed under each trade in the register, which lists a brokerage once however many agents work there — so this measures firms, not licensees.
Selling homes
5312Offices of agents and brokers — the resale market, and the biggest single trade in most Canadian cities.
Named in the register
- Charleston Homes — 35 Palomino Dr
- Enfield Group — 1 Hamilton St S
- Re Max Garden City Realty — 427 Dundas St E
- Southern Sands — 97 Brian Blvd
Owning and letting
5311Lessors of real estate: the buildings themselves, filed under the building rather than the owner.
Named in the register
- Reitter Management — 2 edith Court
- Reitter Management — 4 edith Court
Building new homes
2361Residential builders and the general contractors who work for them.
Named in the register
- Branthaven Homes 2000 — 8 Renwood Pl
- J T Construction — 181 Dundas E
- Ling James P — 105 Braeheid Ave
- Pantano Construction — 331 Dundas E
- Tommar Construction CO — 95 Hamilton St N
Who actually owns it
The full property record →From the /property research for this city, which asks a different question: not who trades in property here, but who owns it. An owner is named there only where a document says so. A community in the City of Hamilton: $37.10 a parcel, no bulk, no open roll.
Landowners
- City of Hamilton — 396.05 acres (160.3 ha) — 13.7% of the Waterdown urban area
- Government of Canada — 0.2 ha
- Every private holder in Waterdown — not established
Homebuilders
- NHDG (Waterdown) Inc. (New Horizon Homes) — 1,019
- Hawk Ridge Homes Inc. — 74
- TRUcustom Homes Inc. — 14
- Chelten Developments Inc. — 7
- Tannco Const. Co. Limited — 6
- 5045377 Ontario Inc. and Onelife Design & Build Inc. — 1 and no possessions recorded
Commercial landlords
- CT Real Estate Investment Trust — 93,170 sq ft at 11 Clappison Avenue; 31,709,453 sq ft across 378 properties (Canada)
- City of Hamilton — 165 parcels, 396.05 acres inside the Waterdown urban boundary
- Government of Canada (Canada Post) — 207 m² on 0.2 ha
- The Dundas Street East and Clappison's Corners retail — not established
5 marquee buildings examined, 5 with an owner established.
On "how many doors"
How many doors a landlord holds is not in any of this. The register files an apartment building under the building, not its owner, and carries no unit count; there is no open dataset of Canadian landlords by portfolio. Where this research has established ownership it is in the /property record for the city, building by building, which is a different and much slower exercise.
Work where you go to them
The Ultimate 411 half of local: everything where the customer does not have to come to you.
A shop needs the customer to walk in. These 157 services do the opposite — the mobile mechanic, the mobile groomer, the bookkeeper, the junk haul — and they are the ones a person can start without a lease. 0 of them already match a trait filed in this city's register.
The 157 Service=1 rows in search.local: work where the provider travels to the customer. "present" counts businesses already filed under that exact trait name; a blank is a coverage gap, not proof of absence, because the two vocabularies were built separately.
home services
events
pets
luxury
healthcare
sporting goods
sports
business
outdoors
construction
travel
tools
Schools and colleges
wander.schools is a post-secondary table — universities and colleges. K-12 public and private schools are not in it, and only 7 of its 1,686 rows carry coordinates, so these are listed and not mapped.
In the business register
Where schooling shows up as a business rather than an institution — which is where K-12, tutoring and childcare appear.
Health and care
What a person moving a parent here would ask first. The register files clinics and pharmacies; it has no category for a hospital at all, so hospitals are matched by name and the limit is stated rather than hidden.
Matched on the name "hospital"
- Waterdown Animal Hospital — 245 Dundas Street
geonet carries no 'hospital' trait, so these are matched on the business name. A distance-to-hospital figure needs a source that states hospital locations.
Mayor & politics
Who holds office here and who is asking to, from the official lists on /politics: the council, the riding’s Member of Parliament and the provincial member. Each name opens its row there.
Realtors in Hamilton — the brokerages and licensed agents to call → (Waterdown is served from Hamilton)
What this record cannot tell you
Named in full, because the gaps are the part most likely to be misread as an answer.
- No census figures on this page: this region is not mapped to a census subdivision in local/census-map.json, so the community counts here are business-register institutions, which is a different measurement and cannot substitute for a population.
- wander.schools is now readable, but it holds universities and colleges only and 1,679 of its 1,686 rows have no coordinates. K-12 public and private schools need a separate source — in Ontario the Ministry of Education school finder, in British Columbia the provincial school list. wander.citytowns, hotels and territories remain denied to the ru user.
- No 'hospital' trait exists in geonet; distance to a hospital needs an external source such as StatCan's Open Database of Healthcare Facilities.
- 21.4% of businesses here carry no coordinates, so a map or address lookup would miss them. Postal codes reach 81.1%.
Built from
geonet.hamilton— the local business registerwander.regions— city name, population, metrosearch.local— trait vocabulary and the come-to-you servicessearch.cozfranchises— 2,024 franchise brands