Letter: Been there, done that

To the editor:

With reference to Coun. Mark Bentz’s column in last week’s Thunder Bay  Source, “Hotel name will be coming soon,” I’m at odds with your closing remarks: “I would like to assure the community that the developer and hotelier are excited to do business and invest their money in our community, so let’s welcome them with open arms.”

From my viewpoint, the public coffers and arms of this community, this province and this country have been already opened with an investment of $60 million in the waterfront development project. You offer an explanation as to the continued delays in announcing the hotelier but the skepticism that lingers within the community can be drawn to the fact that transparency and total community input has been ignored.

You mention that this project is one of the largest in size and scope to be undertaken in the city’s history, but we have a distance to go facing a multitude of construction logistics.

Most recently, it was announced that the city was seeking expression of interest for the establishment of a dining facility within the waterfront plaza. At the same time hopefully the developer will be in the midst of constructing the hotel. On the proposed footprint for the hotel and vehicular access to the waterfront park, hotel construction should provide an interesting challenge for park, marina and dining patrons to avoid. You state the hotel should open by 2014; that will be more than two years of disruption within the immediate hotel construction area.

Mr. Bentz, recall the complaints from residents and merchants when a major road or bridge construction is undertaken within the city.

When the proposed construction of the first condo is undertaken, I visualize a hotel patron looking out the hotel window onto the crane in the process of condo building. Nothing like the alarm of construction workers in the morning. Once this first condo tower is complete the second could be undertaken with the associated logistical aspects.

Further, you do not mention that there is a funding shortfall for the Phase Two of the waterfront project whatever the multi-million dollar amount will finally be adding a debt load to the municipality, sometime in the future.

Hopefully, these life experiences learned from this mega project can be employed in the management initiative when we proceed to the next mega project the proposed multi-purpose facility pegged at $80 million.


Emil Pohler,
Thunder?Bay