Waterfront crossroads

Recent discoveries at the waterfront will further delay any plan for Phase 2 of the development to go ahead and will come with a hefty price tag yet to be determined.

Phase 2 would see 300 new boat slips built in the tugboat basin at Prince Arthur’s Landing. While the project was put on hold after Phase 1 of the development ate into the city’s original $7 million earmarked for the project, an environmental assessment continued.

That process uncovered a concrete-filled barge, old cribs and bumpers and the remains of a dock from 1882 that are of archeological interest. 

Under provincial legislation, the city now has to decide whether to reduce the number of slips and let the objects stay where they are, put the objects on display and preserve them or maybe just move the whole new expansion to another part of the marina.

City community and emergency services manager Greg Alexander said every one of the options that will be presented to city council later this fall will mean money and time.

“We have some obstacles we have to overcome,” he said. “We have to identify them and deal with them.”

The city was hoping to leverage the original $7 million into $22 million, which is what the expansion would cost in 2007, through senior levels of government like it did with Phase 1.

But with less money and an ever increasing price tag, Alexander said the project won’t get done until funding is found.

“We know it’s increased since (2007). I think the last figure was somewhere in the 28 to $30 million figure. We do not have the $7 million we originally had set aside for this because we have had to use it for a variety of things including this environmental assessment that we’ve been going through so we are back to looking at the funding and seeing where that would come from,” he said.

The city also said that changes to the province’s environmental assessment will also add time and money to the project.