By IAN ROSS
Will it ever end?
The analysts said North Bay’s red-hot construction activity should have cooled off a couple of years ago, but mayor Vic Fedeli replies, “We continue to buck the trend.”
The statistics tell the story.
Last year, the city hit the high-water mark in building permits at $77.6 million, up from the previous year’s record of $72 million and surging past $59 million set three years ago.
There’s been millions in government investments at Nipissing University and Canadore College.
As well, mining manufacturers and contractors are expanding their shops, aerospace companies like Voyageur Airways employ hundreds, and four building cranes are erecting a billion-dollar regional hospital and psychiatric care complex.
The spin offs have translated to home purchases with more than 80 new residential starts.
Fedeli is cutting ribbons and lifting plenty of ceremonial sod for new office space, a school, a restaurant and hotels, including a Holiday Inn Express built on some former city-owned land that once sat idle.
Fedeli fearlessly forecasts 2008 will be “incredibly robust” with about $50 million in permitted projects already in the pipeline that the popular two-term mayor can rhyme off the top of his head. “And the year is just starting.”
Groundbreaking is coming up on an $11.5 million Children’s Treatment Centre.
A Hilton-Hampton Inn and a nearby soon-to-be announced office building worth a combined $20 million began construction in February.
And there’s more coming in housing, industry and commercial-retail, says Fedeli.
He’s even more buoyant with what’s coming in ‘09. Nipissing University and Canadore College received $18 million toward a shared 50,000-square-foot library.
The college is building a $12.5 million media centre. Nip U also plans an $8 million student centre and a future academic research wing.
Fedeli, a former award-winning advertising executive and founder of North Bay’s aerospace sector, has the city’s Highway 11 marketing pitch to companies in southern Ontario down pat: a better quality of life, cheaper living and low cost to do business.
“Primarily it’s about money,” said Fedeli. Why spend $500,000 per acre for a factory footprint in the GTA when it’s $14,000 per acre in North Bay?
With Highway 11 only a couple of years away from being four-laned (a mere three hours from Toronto), being north isn’t so north anymore.
As head of the Mayor’s Office of Economic Department, Fedeli wants to attract more small and medium manufacturers, especially exporters.
Got a company with 25 employees? “We’ll move heaven and earth to get you here.”
Since taking office in 2003, Fedeli and a pro-business city council have made it their mission to shape up the city’s finances, sell off unused municipal property for development, and reduce taxes.
The city is on their way to lowering commercial taxes by 25 per cent over 25 years and Fedeli takes pride in his municipality having the second lowest industry tax in Ontario.
A golden development opportunity Fedeli sees is the former Kenroc Tools property on the north side of the waterfront parklands. The city designated the vacant five-acre lot as a brownfield community improvement site.
Fedeli would like to see a hotel-conference centre or series of condominium or apartments go there. The city-owned land offers a “million-dollar sunset view” facing due west over Lake Nipissing.
Going out with the property’s marketing package is a bundle of municipal incentives for developers such as rebates on planning applications, demolition and building permit fees, exemption from parking requirements and development charges, and a reduction in land-fill tipping fees.
“We’re pulling out all the stops on this.”
Fedeli attributes some of the outside investment interest in North Bay to its growing population, up 1,200 to 54,000 in the last two censuses.
“That’s a real source of pride for the community,” says Fedeli, which doesn’t include the thousands of seasonal post-secondary students who arrive each fall.
As well, many local groups are trying to bring newcomers with skills to the community to fill badly needed trades positions.
There’s also some North Bay ex-pats living across North America who wouldn’t mind coming home if the opportunity presented itself.
That’s the message Fedeli received during his annual Think-Tank session of former North Bay-ites visiting over the Christmas holidays.
They suggested a city website with job opportunities and people profiles posted.
Fedeli likes the idea. “There’s always a disconnect between local employers and skilled ex-pats who live elsewhere.”
Tops on his agenda for 2008 are some lifestyle projects.He and council need to figure how to pay for an expanded recycling program and a multi-use outdoor sports complex.
“We’ve had the peddle to the metal on the economy and our finances. So we have to make sure we drag along the good things that keep quality of life high in North Bay.”
