At last year’s Association of Municipalities of Ontario conference, the Town of Collingwood introduced the province to the idea of the Terminals Point project for the first time.
This year, the town made a new request of the province regarding the major project.
On Aug. 19, Collingwood councillors and town staff met with the Minister of Red Tape Reduction Mike Harris to ask that the province appoint someone within their ranks specifically to deal with all communication on the Terminals Point project.
“We’re going to need a lot of provincial approvals from different ministries, and it would be really helpful for us to have an appointed person at his ministry that we could go to for one-window shopping,” Mayor Yvonne Hamlin told CollingwoodToday.
She said the benefit to having someone provincial assigned is that the town wouldn’t have to explain the project from scratch every time they go to the province for approval on any part of it.
“It will help speed up the project, which will reduce costs, including the town’s costs,” said Hamlin. “They said they’d never done that before, but they would take it away and think about how it could be achieved.”
Plans for the Collingwood Grain Terminals revitalization were first presented to the public in March 2023 by developer Les Mallins of Streetcar Developments Inc., with an expected price tag of $200 million overall for the project.
The project, done in collaboration with Dream Unlimited Corporation, includes renovating the Collingwood landmark into a 24-storey condominium tower, commercial spaces, a hotel, and redevelopment of the public park at Millennium Point.
As part of the project, 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 current estimate for costs for that work which will be borne by the town’s coffers comes in at $15 million.
“This will be a provincially significant attraction,” said Hamlin. “We will be seeking some provincial funds for the public amenity space.”
