This Friday, The City of Thunder Bay is celebrating the grand opening of Prince Arthur’s Landing. The $60M waterfront development that is basically a skating rink with two really fancy warm-up shacks.
I am told that in the spring, when the snow melts, the development may be more than that. For now though, that is all that is there. A medium sized outdoor skating rink with two really, really, really expensive warm-up shacks. I can’t over emphasise the expensive part.
So, now that the City of Thunder Bay has one $60M skating rink under their belt, it only makes sense that they start to get the wheels in motion to build another $60M skating rink. Evidently, you can never have enough expensive skating rinks in this city.
Is Thunder Bay a big skating town? Is it worth spending over $120M to build a couple of skating rinks? City Administration seems to think so.
Thunder Bay is a four season city with a three season population. Yes, there is a small percentage of the population that enjoys going outside and frolicking during winter months. The vast majority of the residents of Thunder Bay seem to enjoy shopping at malls. Staying inside. Will a $60M skating rink get them out or will it be used by only a select few individuals? Only time will tell but I believe that the population is becoming indoor people. Its a trend that I do not believe can be reversed by putting a very expensive rink on the lake shore. A very expensive sheet of ice right next to one of the world’s largest sheets of ice. Irony upon irony.
Feds will not fund portion of new events centre
A federal decision not to fund a $20-million portion of the cost to build a new events centre for Thunder Bay has not sounded a death knell for the $80-million project.
City manager Tim Commisso on Friday said the city still plans to go ahead with a $125,000 Phase 2 feasibility study for the project, despite being rejected in the current round of P3 Canada funding, an infrastructure coffer that 120 municipalities applied for funding through in 2011.
“Nothing is going to fall into place off the bat. The reality of this is you have to know exactly what you want. You have to have done your homework and your feasibility before you go ask the province and the feds,” Commisso said.
Commisso added he thinks one of the main reasons the project wasn’t funneled through to the business case was that it was nowhere near shovel-ready, which appears to be a major criteria in the government’s decision-making process.
“I’m not surprised that we are where we are right now with that many applications,” said Commisso, who has repeatedly said the project, a new hockey arena and convention centre its main components, won’t go ahead unless both Queen’s Park and Ottawa come to the table with a share of the cost.
The city, through its Renew Thunder Bay fund, plans to make about $25 million in municipal money available to cover its share of the costs, but he said the city won’t bear the full brunt of the cost alone. – Tbnewswatch
read full article here
