Rendering of what a new Mississauga pier might look like as it stretches some 600 metres out on Lake Ontario. (Image: Lakeview Community Partners Limited)

Mississauga will try again on Thursday to get Peel Region’s full support — and $30 million from the upper-tier municipality — to build a destination pier in the city’s south end that’s expected to become “an extraordinary landmark and a major tourist attraction” for the entire region.

Disappointed they didn’t receive such backing when regional council last met on May 14, Mississauga Mayor Carolyn Parrish and city councillors — in their roles as regional councillors — will take another run at things when Peel council meets again Thursday morning in Brampton.

With $90 million already in place to restore and upgrade the Lakeview pier, the City of Mississauga is seeking the final 25 per cent in funding from Peel. The city, provincial government and Lakeview Community Partners Limited, the group behind the huge new Lakeview Village development, have already committed $30 million apiece to the approximate $120-million project.

Parrish, whose motion seeking Peel funding will be discussed by Mississauga, Brampton and Caledon regional councillors again on Thursday, said in her motion’s preamble a new pier would serve as “an extraordinary landmark and a major tourist attraction” for all of Peel, “attracting local residents and tourists to the waterfront.”

Rendering shows a completed Lakeview Village Pier that’s expected to revitalize the waterfront in Mississauga. (Photo: Lakeview Community Partners Limited)

Mississauga Ward 1 Coun. Stephen Dasko, who seconded the motion, said what came of the matter at the May 14 regional council meeting “wasn’t the most desired outcome.”

Speaking Wednesday at Mississauga city council, he said the goal on Thursday is to move forward with plans for the pier and complete it “the way it was intended.”

“These are 25-cent dollars that we’re getting; they don’t come often,” Dasko said, referring to the cost of the project being split four ways.

Parrish echoed the councillor’s sentiments, noting a revitalized pier “goes hand-in-glove” with the new Jim Tovey Lakeview Conservation Area that has also been restored and is set to open to the public this Saturday.

Old pier once welcomed big ships carrying lots of coal

Both the new conservation area and the pier are part of the 177-acre mixed-use Lakeview Village development located in Mississauga’s southeast corner where the Lakeview Generating Station and its four stacks once stood.

The mayor told INsauga.com in a recent interview at city hall the rejuvenated pier will be an impressive — and relatively inexpensive — addition to both Mississauga and Peel.

Restoration costs aren’t as high given the pier, which once welcomed ships delivering coal to the old Lakeview Generating Station, already has a strong concrete foundation, she explained.

“It sounds like a lot of money, but that’s very inexpensive to build a pier,” Parrish said.

New pier will be an “iconic destination”

Lakeview Community Partners Limited, meanwhile, said earlier a reimagined pier on Mississauga’s waterfront will quickly become an “iconic destination.”

Stretching some 600 metres out on the lake, the new-look, animated pier will be the longest such Canadian attraction on the Great Lakes when completed.

Aerial image shows layout of the new Lakeview Village community and pier.

Continuing, the developer has said the former industrial marker along the waterfront will be “transformed into an iconic destination to celebrate local food and culture and will be admired as a distinguishable landmark on Lake Ontario.”

The reimagined pier, the developer adds, will offer a “world-class waterfront experience” while also connecting people “to places to play, with paddleboards, kayaks, a marina and a beach nearby. Year-round, it will be energized and activated with music festivals, art fairs and eatery pop-ups.”

For decades, noted LCPL earlier, the pier was closed off from the public, used as an industrial pier to transport coal from ships to the former power plant on the site.

“After its demolition, the coal plant left behind a unique one-kilometre-long pier that will become an important catalyst in reconnecting Mississauga with its waterfront,” the developer said earlier. “Once complete, the newly imagined pier will offer panoramic views and a unique waterside experience.”

The measurement of the pier at one kilometre includes a “horizontal component that separates the inlet channel from Lake Ontario,” the City of Mississauga said earlier. So the pier reaches outward into the lake for 600 metres.

When open to the public, the Mississauga pier will be significantly longer than the nearby Burlington pier (137 metres in length), but much shorter than Chicago’s famous Navy Pier, which juts out more than one kilometre (1,006 metres) into Lake Michigan.


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