By NICK STEWART
With construction fever having hit the area once again with $50 million in permits to date, North Bay is well on its way to matching the record-breaking construction values seen in 2006.
“We just seem to be on fire in North Bay,” Mayor Vic Fedeli says.
“Although there’s a general downturn in construction in most places across the province, North Bay has defied that trend. I like to consider us the Calgary of Northern Ontario.”
The first major construction in the city’s industrial park in 15 years began when Atlas-Copco’s new 80,000-square-foot expansion was built.
The company has started to construct the plant, which will manufacture the first North American line of specialty rock bolts.
Demand for its proprietary drill bits has also sparked an expansion for J.N. Precise’s Rotacan, which is working to finish its new 30,000-square-foot facility.
Similarly, Metal Fab is looking to build a 20,000-square-foot expansion to its existing 20,000-square-foot site in the coming months.
Although other industrial-sector permits are still being considered for approval, Fedeli says he expects to be able to announce new projects “in the near future.”
Institutional construction is also shaping up quite strongly, with work having already begun on the city’s billion-dollar North Bay Regional Health Centre.
Both of the city’s post-secondary institutions are also pursuing an aggressive expansion strategy, with Nipissing University looking to build a new $6 million science wing, while Canadore College is pursuing a 35,000-square-foot media centre. Jointly, the two schools are planning for a $20 million shared library and learning centre.
In the accommodation sector, Rick Evans, the city’s manager of economic development points to the recent completion of a new 116-bed Holiday Inn Express, as well a 85-room extended stay hotel known as Staybridge Suites, on which construction has just begun. The two projects, which have a combined worth of $30 million, are being built by the Burlington-based Vrancor Development Corporation.
The company also has plans for a third, Hilton-branded hotel for the city, though size and location have yet to be determined.
Another undisclosed hotel is also in discussion with a separate company.
While tourism numbers have been decreasing somewhat in recent years, this unusually robust hotel activity can be partially attributed to the city’s growing status as a business-oriented destination, according to Evans.
Commercial development is also on the rise, with the imminent completion of a new 5,900-square-foot Boston Pizza being built on McKeown Avenue.
A new Hart Store was also completed this year within the North Bay Mall, which has undergone nearly $4 million worth of renovations throughout 2007.
With construction underway on a 10,000-square-foot facility, Sudbury-based Maslack Supply is expanding to North Bay, as is Future Shop, with a 21,000-square-foot store at the Northgate Shopping Centre.
While North Bay is no exception to the trend of big box stores springing up throughout the province, Evans says the city is working diligently to maintain a careful, measured mix of commercial development.
Zoning efforts are focusing on preventing an overabundance of such stores from cropping up in the region to prevent eroding other commercial sectors.
“You need to make sure that you’re seeing net gains of growth, and you don’t want to promote strengths in one area to the detriment of another.
You can establish these types of big box stores, but then you’ll be sapping jobs for areas like the downtown, so there’s no real balance there, and that’s something we’re trying to preserve.”
Further enhancing the city’s appeal as a potential location for new business and expansion is its newfound credit rating from Moody’s Investors Service, a Toronto-based financial research and analysis firm.
Having achieved a rating of Aa3, the second-highest rating possible, the city can save nearly $250,000 in interest fees as a result of lower interest rates and reduce tax increases by 0.5 per cent.
What’s more, it allows the city to borrow money at a reduced rate, allowing it to pursue additional capital projects.
This year, the city is expected to spend a record $29 million on road, sewer and other infrastructure projects.
“It’s a terribly exciting time to be in the Bay,” Fedeli says. “We had an astounding year last year, and this year, we’re doing much better than I thought.”
www. city.north-bay.on.ca
