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Originally Posted by F. Lionel
I'm actually somewhat surprised by this. May St is quoted consistently as being one of the highest volume in the whole system. I wonder, though, how many of those people are walk ups to the store who might not buy as much if they have to walk further to the Thunder Centre? The Thunder Centre isn't really part of any neighbourhood, just on the periphery of one. It's an automotive destination, not a pedestrian one. It just seems like an odd relocation, albeit one that I can somewhat understand from a commercial location standpoint.
I am also going to assume that this isn't really public knowledge yet because the "Destruction of Fort William" brigade hasn't started spewing their usual bs on internet.
Curious, too, as to where a drive through beer store would be located in the Thunder Centre. I thought with the construction of The Gap it would be pretty much at capacity now?
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It's not public knowledge yet, but the employees know and have told a few people. It will either be going between The Gap and Micheal's or it will be going on Fort William itself as part of the C&H redevelopment of the Labour Centre area. I have a feeling that if C&H doesn't yet own the building next door, they will soon.
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Originally Posted by tjernobyl
Energy North Bancorp has asked Council for a LOI regarding a possible facility here.
They would source silica sand in the area to produce low-iron glass and metallurgical-grade silicon for solar PV arrays. While most failed PV manufacturers in Ontario have been assembly plants for components sourced overseas, they intend to be fully vertically integrated from raw materials to finished product. Aside from the aforementioned sand, they need a lot of natural gas, wood chips to deoxidize the silica, 3000-5000 employees, and 1000 acres of land, though not necessarily contiguous.
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A project of this scale, if it actually manages to get off the ground (and these guys appear to be 0 for 5 right now) would totally change the way this entire city functions. Where ever it goes, the city will have to re-orient itself to it. We'll have to build more roads, more water lines, more houses. Each job created by an industry like this creates up to 3 spin-off jobs, and we only have 2,500 people who are looking for jobs right now in the first place. This single factory, if it happens, will more than "solve" unemployment here. I have a feeling that the factory itself will be located near the Harbour Expressway, as the natural gas line runs down Belrose or thereabouts and there is a lot of undeveloped land. That would be the most desirable location from an urban planning point of view, since there are also nearby water line tie-ins, plans for subdivision development to accommodate most of the people this will attract, and it won't warp the city's development pattern significantly. Some people have suggested it will go on the reserve but that would require massive investments in water, sewer, natural gas and roads; the southern portion of McIntyre Ward already has most of that, plus more land. The biggest question is, who pays for all the infrastructure required just to get this thing off the ground? We're talking at least $200,000,000 in infrastructure that city will have to build to accommodate a development like this.
It's too good to be true. This isn't "like the multiplex", this is a magnitude larger.