Final meeting

Residents remained divided on the location of the proposed event centre as hundreds packed into the Thunder Bay Community Auditorium for the final public information session.

The city’s most recent report on the location of the event centre favoured the downtown north core as a suitable spot over Innova Park. The location of the $106.1 million event centre has become a polarizing issue among residents with each favouring one of the two locations.

But the decision will rest with city council on Monday.

With that in mind, city officials held one last public information session at the auditorium before council makes their decision.
Conrad Boychuk, senior director of development with CEI, said it’s critical for people who want to make a deputation at the city council meeting to be fully informed and that is why the information session is so important.

“If there’s something I want people to come away with, and it is going to be a polarizing audience, I want people to know about the need for transformation,” Boychuk said.

“The downtown Port Arthur and Fort William cores aren’t what they used to be. They need to get some of that energy and excitement back. The need to transform the downtowns is fundamental.”

What really makes the Port Arthur north core location interesting is that there’s a real sense of excitement with its number of developments, he said.

There’s a momentum and Boychuk said it’s important not to waste that opportunity.

“The city is polarized,” he said. “It isn’t softly divided it is polarized. You cannot go to either side without causing some reaction. It has to be dealt with as part of the process. You just have to deal with it.”

Despite the information, most of those who attended the meeting told Tbnewswatch.com that the consultants didn’t change their minds.

Susan Soldan said she wanted to hear firsthand what the city planned to do with parking. Her main concern revolved around parking and if the event centre was located in Port Arthur what kind of congestion could there be.

“I see advantages to the waterfront location but I am concerned about congestion,” she said. “The meeting made me feel good about some things and question others. There were a lot of good points raised.”

Another woman, who refused to give her name, agreed that the meeting didn’t change her mind and continued to think that Innova Park was the ideal spot.

Although Keith Johnson, who is for Innova Park, wanted instead to have the decision rest with the public and said he wanted to stir up the public to ask for a plebiscite.

“As taxpayers we should have a voice,” he said. “It defies logical for anyone to tell me that they can expropriate property and rebuild a bus station and move a hydro transformation station cheaper than property that they already own in Innova Park. They try to tell us it is cheaper downtown but I cannot believe how you can begin to think that.”

Ray Smith, who wore a t-shirt that read “plebiscite” on the front and “Innova Park” on the back, agreed with Johnson’s statements and said there’s been conflicting opinions in online polls that favoured Innova.

He said the decision should rest with the citizens.

“It is too expensive, it is not where the people want it, the area is congested and there’s no parking now,” Smith said. “In order to provide parking it would be too expensive.”

Not to be outdone, proponents of an event centre in the north core held a small rally outside the auditorium.

Jason Susin, from Opportunity Thunder Bay, said they wanted to support the local businesses down by the waterfront because they could use the economic benefits that an event centre could bring in.

“We think it is a beautiful location simply because of the waterfront,” Susin said. “If we’re going to have a conference centre that’s the place where we’re going to put it because it has the money shot and it is worth a few extra bucks if it was a few dollars more than Innova.”

Jim Comuzzi, vice-chair of the Downtown Waterfront BIA, said they represent around 100 businesses in the downtown and all of them support the Port Arthur location.

Both the federal and provincial governments want to fund projects that will create more energy in urban environments and the downtown Port Arthur spot accomplishes that goal, he said.

“We’ve been in business down there for over a hundred years so we’re well aware of what kind of jewel the even centre can be for us,” he said. “I don’t think this issue is divisive for a lot of people as it is for a select few. It seems to have people who are opposing anything we try to do as a city that’s progressing the city forward. It also seems like the same people over and over.”