A plan for a four-storey office building on Huron Street is still in early days as both council and the developer reflect on a slew of concerns raised by neighbours.
Parkbridge submitted a proposal for their new office building at the former landfill site at 70 Huron Street, which would serve as the company’s new national head office in place of the existing Calgary location. The company requested an exception to allow the building height to be 17 metres.
At a June 15 public meeting neighbours crowded into the council chambers and presented a list of concerns led by passionate opposition to the increased building height request. Residents also had concerns about traffic congestion in the area and buffer landscaping between their residential homes and the commercial Parkbridge building.
“We are taking the comments from the public meeting into consideration about the height of the building, as well as a number of others,” said Pamela Bennett, director of corporate communications for Parkbridge.
At the public meeting, council asked staff to prepare a report comparing a three-storey building with a larger footprint to the proposed four-storey building footprint. Staff have not yet brought such a report back to council.
In the meantime, Parkbridge will be working toward site-cleanup.
“Soil remediation is still going through approvals with engineers to meet the requirements of the Nottawasaga Valley Conservation Authority, municipality and county, etc,” said Bennett. “And so we don’t have a timeline as of yet.”
Parkbridge owns and operates land-lease communities, RV parks and cottage resort properties across Canada.
Locally, Parkbridge operates nine communities in the region including Park Place, Wasaga Meadows, Wasaga Pines, and Wasaga Dunes. There are also projects in the works on Grey Road 19 in Craigleith and on Christie Beach Road in Meaford.
Collingwood town council has not yet made a decision on Parkbridge’s request for additional building height.
