Vic says there's a Hole lot of selling going on

Newly elected North Bay Mayor Vic Fedeli has started selling the Hole.

Fedeli met Wednesday in Toronto with representatives from a data storage equipment manufacturer and officials from the world’s largest data storage company.

The subject of their discussions?

The underground complex at the Sector Air Operations Centre in North Bay, where technicians monitor Canada's airspace 24 hours a day, using state-of-the-art sensors, computer and communications equipment.

The feds will be closing the complex in five years in favour of an above-ground building in the city.

"Once it's no longer being used," Fedeli said, the Hole would be perfect for companies such as Microsoft, and large groups such as the Royal Bank, the World Bank, and the United Nations to store their data in."

No cost sales force
Fedeli and Jay Aspin, an international trade consultant with the North Bay and District Chamber of Commerce, started the ball rolling with the meeting.

“We basically laid out the opportunity North Bay has with this facility closing down, and the opportunity it would present for data storage and for selling more data storage equipment,” Fedeli said.

“And this data storage equipment manufacturer, when it talks to its clients about the Hole, then becomes a no-cost sales force for North Bay.”

Fedeli said North Bay residents are aware of the Hole, and the fibre optics network running throughout it, but few people outside the city even know it exists.

“And when we told these people they were quite surprised,” Fedeli said.

“It becomes a great competitive advantage for us to have the only bombproof underground facility in the world. So we came away from the meetings feeling encouraged we can turn the Hole into a real business opportunity.”

Fedeli said converting the Hole into a data storage facility would create about 100 high-tech jobs.

The names of the companies Fedeli met with are not being released yet because talks are in the early stages.