The Collingwood Terminals have been a yearly newsmaker in Collingwood for decades, the saga continued in 2024.
This year, the action around the Terminals mostly focused on plans for the public park space, but residents kept the condo tower at the top of the discussion.
The Collingwood Terminals were built in the 1920s and operated as a grain elevator for shipping operations at the Collingwood harbour. They operated until the early 1990s and the town purchased the site in 1997. The massive concrete building is located at the end of Heritage Drive (also called The Spit) and bordering Millennium Park and Collingwood Harbour.
Since about 1997, the town has been mulling over ideas for what to do with the building, including whether to tear it down. The current plan, however, is a joint initiative with a private developer – Streetcar Developments Inc. and Dream Unlimited Corporation – involving a condo tower, plans to convert the silos into hotel rooms, and a restaurant for the top floor.
Specifically, the plan unveiled in March, 2023, envisions a 10-floor hotel out of the grain silos portion of the building. The spaces between the silos will be replaced with windows. The ground-floor plans include a restaurant and cafés, an activity rental shop, and cultural and community spaces.
The 10th and top floor will be built as one large space on top of the existing terminals structure to be called “The Bin Floor,” housing a bar and restaurant, outdoor terraces, event spaces, a fitness facility and a wellness centre.
On the east side of the building connected to the Terminals will be a 24-storey (from ground to top) residential condominium tower. Also included in the plans is the redevelopment of the spit, Millennium Park and the area surrounding the Terminals to create more public recreation options.
Those public recreation options were put to the public this year with a meeting in November and a survey open for several weeks asking for input on the $34 million plan for the public spaces, which include a few piers, a protected swimming area, a field, a berm and a "mini forest," plus waking trails.
After dipping into development charges, the public park portion of the project will cost the town about $17 million.
Additionally, the town has committed to improving the public realm lands, such as expanding the roads, shoreline work, improving the marina and running infrastructure along the spit on Heritage Drive. The 2022 estimate for costs for that work which will be borne by the town’s coffers comes in at $15 million.
The costs of the Terminals building conversion will be 100 per cent the responsibility of the developer. Early estimates suggested the project will cost about $200 million.
Also in 2023, construction crews did some exploratory drilling to determine whether the condo tower is feasible.
Specialists were called in to remove abandoned mud nests left by swallows who had migrated for the season.
Millennium Park is technically a landfill. Waste pulled from the harbour following the closure of the Collingwood Shipyards is contained and capped underground at the park.
Because of this, the Terminals Point project cannot include any digging. Building aspects of the project like the underground parking will go up instead of down.
A document posted by the town forecasting the project timeline states there will be further public meetings in the first quarter of 2025, around the same time that the applications for rezoning and an official plan amendment will be submitted to the town. Both are needed to build residential and to build 24 storeys on the site.
The same timeline estimates site plan approval by the end of 2025 or early in 2026.
