Pearson Plaza in Elliot Lake is on track to be completed and open for business in the spring of 2016.
Three years in the making, the $3.5-million shopping centre development started in 2012 and was scheduled to be complete a year later.
Site preparation for Pearson Plaza, named for the nearby Lester B. Pearson Memorial Park, was undertaken by J.I. Enterprises in the fall of 2012, and a tender for its development was awarded to Barrie-based McCowan & Associates that same year.
But the project faced a number of delays along the way that pushed the completion date back.
Looking back, William Elliott, general manager of the Elliot Lake and North Shore Corporation for Business Development (ELNOS), said the organization was “overly optimistic” that the development could be completed in such a short timeline.
“You took a mountain and your plan was, in a community that’s all hills, to blow up the mountain to create a nine-acre flat site and build a new mall on it, and we thought, ‘Oh, we can do that in a year,’” Elliott mused. “In retrospect, we were a little aggressive.”
A number of factors contributed to the delay, many of which were beyond ELNOS’ control and directly related to the challenges of development in Northern Ontario, he added.
“When you don’t have a ready supply of anything here, everything’s got to be brought in, whether that’s materials, whether that’s equipment, whether that’s personnel,” Elliott said. “It’s not like in southern Ontario where, if you need an extra 10 guys for the day, you can pull them off another job site, or if you need a piece of equipment for a couple of hours you can float it in and send it back.”
Developers are reluctant to build during the wintertime because of the added expense, and part of the project had to be redesigned, which extended the timeline, he added.
The delays have also meant added costs to the tenants that are waiting to move into the new space, especially the Foodland grocery store, which is currently operating out of an 8,000-square-foot repurposed community hall.
But by late October, that was all “water under the bridge,” Elliott said, and the contractors were well on their way.
The shopping centre’s design is now comprised of two stages: in phase one, 60,000 square feet of space will be developed, and phase two calls for 30,000 square feet of future development that is yet to be determined.
The project is still meeting the original three requirements of the community: build a one-level structure, create enclosed thoroughfares between stores, and include a food court and social area. A few retailers objected to those terms, because it goes against their standard for development, but Elliott said ELNOS insisted they be met.
“We’ve really stuck to our guns on that, and that’s not been easy,” he said.
Throughout the summer, Lions Group of Caledon was completing the balance of the civil engineering work on site, including sewer, water, storm sewer management, natural gas, grading, light standards, paving, curbs, and sidewalks. Elliott anticipated that work to be complete by the end of October.
Simultaneously, Sobeys, Foodland’s parent company, brought in its own developer, Rochon Building Corp. of York, to start construction on its brand-new, 27,000-square-foot grocery store. A third contractor, RJBM of Quebec, is building the balance of the shopping centre for McCowan & Associates.
Rochon lost a bit of time setting the foundation for the grocery store by digging down to bedrock; a job that would normally take four to six weeks took 16 because of the massive amounts of rock it encountered. But the company was later able to make up some time by using micropiles — foundations comprised using strong steel — for its interior pillars, an idea borrowed from RJBM.
All the contractors are now working against Mother Nature in order to complete the bulk of the outdoor work before the cold weather sets in. The steel for the Foodland structure was going up by the end of October, and RJBM anticipated their materials to arrive in early November.
“They’re taking advantage of the fact that we’ve had a relatively mild fall,” Elliott said. “They’re trying to get enclosed as fast as possible.”
Tenants confirmed for the plaza include Foodland, Dollarama, and the 7,000-square-foot Turners Elliot Lake, a general store operated by Jib and Debby Turner, who own the iconic Turners department store in Little Current on Manitoulin Island.
Subway has been confirmed for the food court, and McCowan is also in talks to secure a coffee shop and pizza place, Elliott said.
The city’s library will move into a 10,000-square-foot custom-built space, which Elliott said provides “awesome” views of the community.
“They’ve always had to make do with a space that was originally for something else,” Elliott said. “This’ll be the first time they’re in a space that was designed from the ground up to be a library, so it’s going to be great.”
Despite the delays and challenges, Elliott is confident the development can be complete by its anticipated deadline of March or April. Sobeys is expected to move into its new space first, followed by the other tenants. Landscaping will be done during the warmer months.
Pearson Plaza has been widely anticipated by community members who lost their social hub as well as the city’s main retail centre when a portion of the roof of the former Algo Centre Mall collapsed on June 23, 2012, killing Doloris Perizzolo and Lucie Aylwin and injuring others. That mall has since been demolished.
