City Waterfront Project Moves Along
by Scott A. Sumner
Things are moving along nicely was the word from Mayor Lynn Peterson of Thunder Bay at a media conference held in front of some new boat slips on the city waterfront. There are a number of public buildings that will be up out of the ground in the coming months with a lot of
work done over the summer.MayorPeterson wanted to point out the local economic impact to
Thunder Bay. Since 2008, 333 local jobs have been occured, 76 local companies hired, $26 million in contracts have been let and 9000 square meters of new land the size of two football fields created. There have been lots of local products used and many salvaged products utilized such as brick, earth, chain link fencing, granular material and so on.
“ We are finishing stage 1 of the project and getting ready for stage 2. When it is all done it will be world class and the community will have every square inch of this to enjoy,” said Lynn Peterson. “Everything takes as long as it needs to take to get what you want, to get the right style and mix. You take as long as you need to take to get it right.”
The private sector part of the development also appears to be moving forward.
“ We have had meetings with the developer as they have short listed their hotel proponents to 3. One of the challenges is we don’twant a really large hotel but more of a boutique hotel. They will begin refining their discussions with the hotel people after ourmeetings. The hotel will be developed either before or in conjunction with the residential units,” said Kathleen McFadden, Waterfront Manager. “ We expect to move forward shortly and then bring forth information to the public. We have been working with the developer to come up with a plan that works well for us all. It is about integrating our work and their work to make it as seamless as possible. We want to be sure the development is compliant with the guidelines and are hopeful we can begin construction in the fall.”
“ We are very happy with the progress to date and how the crews have been working. In October it will look a lot different here than today. We will have the water garden pavilion and the baggage building out of the ground and it should be enclosed so you will actually see the structure. The pier will be under construction for landscaping. The skateboard parking lot will be under construction and work taking place at the playground,” said Gary Wood, Waterfront Construction Supervisor.” We are trying to get essentially complete for March 2011 with some landscaping still left. The private sector should be well underway by then. By next summer it will look like a park again- green and beautiful again. It will be a world class park.”
The total value of the public component of the project is $ 47.5 million and $26 million has been spent to date with nine more tenders to come, mostly being landscaping with some road work and lighting.
