The city of Sault Ste. Marie has 15 acres of prime waterfront property it wants to turn into a major tourism attraction.
CORRESPONDENT
SAULT STE.MARIE
The city of Sault Ste. Marie has 15 acres of prime waterfront property it wants to turn into a major tourism attraction.
And it has $15 million from the Ontario government to help make it happen.
Now all it needs is developers with financial backing, the ability to get the job done and an idea that will attract thousands of visitors.
City council gave approval to go back to the drawing board to find a new developer to create a tourism destination on the Gateway site.
It has confirmed that the $15 million from the Northern Ontario Heritage Fund Corp. is still available if the project moves forward in a timely fashion.
Two weeks ago, council cancelled the contract it had with legacy Quest Developments to develop the site due to what it called “contractual breeches.”
The new plan calls on the city, with marketing assistance from the Economic Development Corp., to start a two-step process that will evaluate potential developers and their ideas to develop a tourism attraction on the waterfront property.
The first step is to seek requests for qualifications, due Feb. 15, which allows the city an opportunity to evaluate the qualifications of interested parties without requiring them to complete a comprehensive and expensive request for proposal.
The RFQ process will evaluate the experience of the principal company and partners in developing and operating large tourism attractions.
It also evaluates the financial strength and financing capabilities of the proponents, reviews their business approach to the development of the project and reviews a general description of the tourism attraction and any other project components.
Ultimately, the process focuses more on examining the potential developers and only briefly reviews their development idea.
Short-listed candidates will then be asked to submit full detailed reports on their proposals, including a business plan and architectural drawings.
Sault Mayor John Rowswell said there are no preconceived notions at this point.
“We’re starting over and we’re proceeding again. Hopefully in about three months from now we’ll have a selection of qualified proponents with a notion of what they would like to build on the Gateway site,” he said.
Rowswell believes that because the Sault’s location is “the doorstep to Northern Ontario,” the city has the responsibility of making itself attractive and drawing tourists to the area.
The first step is to seek requests for qualifications, due Feb. 15, which allows the city an opportunity to evaluate the qualifications of interested parties without requiring them to complete a comprehensive and expensive request for proposal.
The RFQ process will evaluate the experience of the principal company and partners in developing and operating large tourism attractions.
It also evaluates the financial strength and financing capabilities of the proponents and reviews their business approach to the development of the project. The process focuses more on examining the potential developers and only briefly reviews their development idea.
Short-listed candidates will then be asked to submit full detailed reports on their proposals, including a business plan and architectural drawings.
Sault Mayor John Rowswell said there are no preconceived notions.
“We’re starting over and we’re proceeding again. Hopefully in about three months from now we’ll have a selection of qualified proponents with a notion of what they would like to build on the Gateway site,” he said.
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