massive layoff on Monday<\/a>, Sault Ste. Marie city councillors will learn details of an all-out proposal to create almost 2,500 new jobs and significantly diversify the local economy.<\/p>\nIt’s a $200-million plan\u00a0involving 216 acres of waterfront industrial land that could grow to 950 acres.<\/p>\n
“The concept of developing a port in Sault Ste. Marie has been discussed as far back as 1956,” says Tom Vair, the city’s chief administrative officer, in a report prepared for Mayor Matthew Shoemaker and ward councillors.<\/p>\n
“As council is aware, staff have been advancing the port project as a key component of the community\u2019s economic development initiatives,” Vair said.<\/p>\n
The 2,488 new jobs would be created within five years.<\/p>\n
Of those jobs,\u00a0796 would be direct, 1,000 induced jobs and 692 indirect positions.<\/p>\n
Another 1,400 to 1,800 full-time-equivalent construction jobs would exist during the two years before the port is ready to start operations.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The business plan calls for $134 million in annual personal income and $343 million in economic activity.<\/p>\n
“A business case was completed in collaboration with HOPA (Hamilton Oshawa Port Authority). HOPA and a summary of this business case is being provided to council as an update on the project,” Vair said.<\/p>\n
“To avoid any confusion, the name of the project has been adjusted to be the Port of Sault Ste. Marie. The port contemplated will be operated separately and apart from Algoma Steel, although Algoma Steel will have the ability to utilize the new port facilities under terms to be finalized.<\/p>\n
“This initiative will link northern Ontario\u2019s resource-rich industries with southern Ontario, Quebec and global markets, strengthening Canada\u2019s supply chain resilience and driving economic transition.<\/p>\n
Vair says the following sectors would be able to use a Sault Ste. Marie port and an associated trade corridor:<\/p>\n
\n\tminerals and mining
\n\tforestry and value-added wood products
\n\tsteelmaking
\n\tmanufacturing
\n\tsalt and aggregates
\n\tagriculture
<\/p>\n
“Throughout the development of the business case, there have been a number of discussions with industry partners and strong support expressed from organizations, Vair said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“Discussion with First Nations partners has begun and ongoing discussions will be held in the coming months.”<\/p>\n
Elements of the $200-million plan include:<\/p>\n
\n\trefurbished dock walls enabling two vessels to berth
\n\tcargo laydown space
\n\tsecurity and safety systems
\n\trail transload area
\n\tbase infrastructure for tenant-ready leasable industrial space
\n\trail access upgrades to the Algoma Central Railway
<\/p>\n
The plan allows for new shipping capacity for stockpiles of slag on Algoma Steel property,\u00a0freeing\u00a0up land for development use.<\/p>\n
It could also support potential new rail and\u00a0beam manufacturing at Algoma, and create winter seasonal storage and shipping for coils east of the Soo locks.<\/p>\n
Further, it provide\u00a0Tenaris and other local manufacturers with more\u00a0laydown space and better transportation services\u00a0to accommodate their growth plans.<\/p>\n
The proposal would provide $26 million in provincial and local taxes, and $26 million in federal taxes.<\/p>\n
Monday’s city council meeting will be livestreamed on SooToday starting at 5 p.m.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After 70 years of chinwagging about a multimodal port, the city’s getting very serious about the idea As…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":549091,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[45,49,48,213650],"class_list":{"0":"post-549090","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-tom-vairport-of-sault-ste-marie"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/549090","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=549090"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/549090\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/549091"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=549090"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=549090"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=549090"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}