Jay Aspin speaks to the media during a funding announcement on Friday at City Hall. PHOTO BY CHRIS DAWSON.
Nipissing-Timiskaming MP Jay Aspin announced a Fednor investment of $300,000 to help fund an engineering study and environmental assessment to help construct a new multi-use pier at the North Bay Waterfront.
Aspin says the investment will help establish an enhanced, central waterfront area that will boost tourism throughout the area, support jobs and create new business development opportunities.
“The Harper Government is proud to make this targeted investment that will generate new business opportunities and further position North Bay as a tourism destination of choice in Northern Ontario," stated Aspin in a release.
"This initiative builds on the community’s inherent strengths, while supporting jobs and a strong economy for the Nipissing–Timiskaming region.”
Mayor Al McDonald believes this is part of a vision for North Bay 25 years down the road.
"There’s a lot of unknown's on our waterfront so the government dock engineers have expressed some concern that we have to start to address it but we can’t make any decisions until we know exactly what that means," said McDonald.
"The $300,000 that we are getting from from MP Jay Aspin and the federal government will give us some answers on what we need to do but its a small part of the whole urbanization study of our waterfront and where we need to go and this is an opportunity for our community to plan what that vision is going to look like in 25 years from now so, if you will, these are are just putting the small building blocks to get started for well down the road but its appreciated, it’s $300,000 our tax payers don’t have to pay."
It's not the first time the city has used federal government cash to study the reality of a Waterfront upgrade. In 2013, the city spent $150,000 in Fednor funding to do a feasibility study using a local consulting team.
Back then, the options on the table were to fix the wharf, demolish it and build a new breakwater with a new dock for the Chief Commanda cruise ship, or build a larger new wharf with cruise ship docking and the potential to construct new facilities.
