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Room to Grow - The Packet & Times
Economic growth could be coming to the Sunshine City as early as this spring, says Dan Landry, Orillia's manager of economic development.
The city is currently marketing 10 acres of land in the West Orillia Industrial Park.
"We're certainly hopeful we could have some shovels in the ground in the spring for actual development of businesses accessing the lots from University Avenue," Landry said on Monday.
Orillia's economic development committee (EDC) is advertising the land — and the city's three-year moratorium on industrial development charges — in site-selection and business publications.
"There has been some interest expressed (from) existing (industries), but the majority have been from new development," Landry said.
In the new year, the EDC will focus its efforts on targeting the Greater Toronto Area (GTA).
"Since one of our main target areas is small- to medium-sized industries, we feel the GTA is a prime target and a cost-effective target to market to," Landry said.
Orillia owns 50 acres of land in the West Orillia Industrial Park, and all are designated as employment lands.
That means big-box commercial retailers cannot move onto the land.
In accordance with the Ontario government's Growth Plan for the Greater Golden Horseshoe, Orillia must provide at least 25 jobs per hectare of land in the West Orillia Industrial Park.
Charter Construction, owned by Mayor Angelo Orsi, owns 100 acres of property on the West Orillia employment lands.
To date, Orsi has declared a conflict of interest on all matters related to the West Orillia employment lands.
Using the city's website, the EDC is letting interested developers know there are 150 acres of available employment land located in that area.
"Just like we're promoting that we have full-service commercial shopping, even though we don't own the commercial shopping outlets in town, this is a selling point," Landry said. "If businesses are set up on our lands or privately owned lands, it's still jobs."
Prep work on city-owned land began in August when the city approved a $842,403 contract for land regrading. Preliminary road-grade work was also completed.
A portion of city-owned land on the east side of the property needs additional regrading work, which will be done by whoever purchases the properties, Landry said.
"We didn't have enough budget to completely grade all the land, but did get the majority of them," he said.
During 2012 budget discussions, the city injected $1.4 million into the industrial park for the construction of a roadway that will provide access to the entire site. The road project includes water, sewer, street lights and sidewalks.
"The internal road is what we need to be able to access and service all of the city-owned lands in west Orillia," Landry said.
The land will be serviced in five-acre parcels, which can be easily subdivided into two-and-a-half acres. It's expected interested industries would require two to two-and-a-half acres each.
"We didn't want to over-service the property because if you service it all for one-acre lots and someone comes along and asks for five acres, you did some work and had some costs that you didn't really need to have," Landry said.
The road project is expected to go to tender mid- to late winter.
Construction of the new road is expected to start in the spring and be completed by the fall of 2012.
"The next stage is to entertain and promote the land and get people building on there and creating jobs," Landry said.