By Dianne Gouliquer
Thunder Bay's waterfront development initiative remains at a standstill while the city and the developer hammer out a development agreement.
But the $140-million Portside project, which will spruce up the city's harbour with an amusement park, time-shared condominiums, shops, restaurants and water attractions, may be on its way to becoming a reality before the end of the year, says the waterfront development manager.
Paul Brucha says negotiations are still underway with private developer Thunder Bay Waterfront Developments Inc. to start working on the long-awaited project. In the meantime, cleanup at the site continues, allowing for construction to start later this year.
"We're still cleaning up the site after the Pool 6 implosion," Brucha says, referring to the Dec. 17 demolition of the former Saskatchewan Pool 6 elevator that consumed a large portion of the property. "That's an ongoing project which is going to be finished later on this year. We're segregating the various materials on the site right now; nothing has left the site. Then there is some site remediation to do in order to make it environmentally nice because part of it was an industrial site."
Demolition of the grain elevator took just seconds and the implosion made national news. The grain elevator served the community for nearly a century, but its end marked the beginning of a colourful new waterfront district for the community.
Now almost six months later, Brucha says a development agreement may be just a few weeks away.
A portion of the funding is still awaiting the project's start; $15 million has been promised from the Northern Ontario Heritage Fund Corp., but Brucha says construction must get underway before next spring in order not to lose it.
"There is a deadline of March 31, 2002," he says. "The rest of the funding is up to the developers (to secure)."
The city is still looking to have the entire development, which will be anchored by a 180-room Sheraton Four Points Hotel with views overlooking the Sleeping Giant, completed by 2004 as originally planned.
Brucha says once a development agreement has been inked, the project can move on to the design phase, followed by construction.
