The project team behind the redevelopment of the former pulp mill site in Marathon recently provided some colour and detail on the path forward.
The collaboration of Critchley Hill Architecture, Perkins Will, HAPA Collaborative, and TBT Engineering briefed Marathon council July 5 on the progress made so far with the Active Living Centre, considered one of the municipality’s tent pole community projects.
The architects and planners presented council with a base case, price tag of $56.5 million for a 73,000-square-foot building, including $48.4 million in construction costs.
The Active Living Centre is described in municipal documents as a “key cog to the town’s future” that would replace its aging recreational complex,
The centre and outdoor plaza would be erected on a 3.6-hectare patch of the former Marathon Pulp mill site where pyramids of wood chip piles once stood. The mill closed in 2009 with the loss of more than 200 jobs.
Tasked with unlocking the “beauty in our backyard,” as Mayor Rick Dumas phrased it, the project team provided an initial view of what the proposed centre and reclaimed brownfield environs might look by way of building elements, programming and landscaping features.
They are examining various site scenarios, factoring in how the building would be shaped and situated in proximity to Marathon’s harbour and how it would tie in with other waterfront development, including hiking trails, the marina and its Pebble Beach development, which is an upgraded scenic lookout of Lake Superior, now under construction.
Landscape architect Joseph Fry called the brownfield site a “spectacular” one and a “remarkable and powerful place” that sits at the convergence of the edge of Lake Superior, the Boreal forest and the Pre-Cambrian Shield.
Marathon and the now vacant former mill property is familiar turf for Fry, a principle with Vancouver’s Hapa Collaborative, who’s approaching this assignment with trained and fresh eyes.
A native of Marathon, Fry worked a summer job at the pulp mill, and is excited about opening up the once “economic engine” of the community to many people for the first time.
Construction of the Active Living Centre is certainly a ways off. Tender documents won’t be released until late 2024.
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Only site analysis is currently taking place with a geotechnical investigation of the property, including soil sampling.
The building is categorized as a quality of life project but it would also be an enhanced amenity to attract and retain newcomers and families to this emerging mining town on the north shore of Lake Superior.
Just 10 kilometres from the middle of town, Generation Mining is pulling together the financing for a palladium and copper mine situated just off the edge of the local airport runway.
Community surveys over the years show 93 per cent support for the Active Living Centre project.
More direction will have to come from council in the months ahead of what will be housed inside the centre, but high on the community’s priority list includes an ice rink with a seating area, an indoor track, a swimming pool, a community theatre and a multi-purpose room with seniors programming.
Outside, there are the possibilities of a dog park, court sports and passive recreational uses like benches, walking trails and a wetlands.
How the building will be funded and what will be split between the municipality and senior levels of government still has to be strategized.
The project team pointed out there’s an array of brownfield and community infrastructure grants and subsidies to tap into for shovel-ready projects, as well as green funds for net-zero carbon emitting buildings.
Marathon CAO Daryl Skworchinski said the municipality and the community are heading down the right path in proofing out the site and doing its due diligence from an environmental and geotechnical standpoint.
This work, he said, will be completed over the next eight to nine weeks with the project team coming back to council by late fall to seek permission to proceed to a more detailed design-development stage.
Skworchinski cautioned, administratively, they “can’t lose of the momentum we’ve gained to this point.” Project costs will undoubtedly escalate and time is a factor to reach a point where council can make a sound financial decision in the community’s best interests on what stands to be a “legacy project for the next 40 to 50 years.”
