When you love your city you want it all to succeed. Every city boosting initiative, every idea that worked somewhere else, every person that has the energy and initiative to put it on the line.

They don’t all work. Many, or even most, fail and out of the ashes comes new energy, new ideas and new lessons.

Many people here in London have been aware of an initiative that’s been kicking around for years – a centre for social innovation for our city. I had the pleasure of meeting one of my role models, Mark Kuznicki, a few years back at Toronto’s CSI and have been excited to see this kind of space happen in London. Why? I hate silos. HATE them. And the city that I love is full of them. We need a space to bust up some of these silos and to get our very best and brightest working together.

We were invited to be an anchor tenant in London’s CSI a few years back. A number of locations were investigated, we were committed to the idea and wanted our skin in this game. Time marched on and our lease was coming to an end, things looked promising with the centre but we had to find a new home and we needed certainty. Backing out of the project was one of the tougher decisions that we’ve had to make.

We were very excited to hear the news this week about the pending deal for a home for the Social Innovation Shared Space (SISS).

This doesn’t come without some mixed feelings for me. Although we are gaining a potentially groundbreaking centre in our city we are also losing a century old retailer from the core as well. We’re at a crossroads of heritage, traditional retail and social innovation; all things I care deeply about.

Kingsmill’s was already up for sale but it always felt like it would be a long shot. It’s amazing that they had survived so long in this day and age of big box stores, suburban shopping malls and online retail. The clock was always ticking and we all knew it deep down.

So, while I feel a lot of joy at the birth of something extraordinary and celebrate that an extraordinary piece of our heritage will be preserved., I’ll also mourn the loss of something special.

Life’s like that.