Business park in final stages: Atikameksheng Anishnawbek business park expected to open spring 2017.

• Author: Myers, Ella
• Position: SUDBURY

It's been a long time coming, but Chief Steve Miller said a light industrial business park will open its doors in Atikameksheng Anishnawbek (Whitefish Lake First Nation) in spring 2017.

"I was part of the committee at the beginning and it's taken about 15 years with a lot of red tape, but right now the city of Sudbury supports it, the community supports it, other First Nations support it," said Miller.

The business park was first discussed in 2000, but in 2008 it took off.

The design was completed in 2009, and encompasses 18 lots, which average three acres each. The park received significant interest from businesses to lease the lots, but Miller said they realized that they would need to have jurisdiction over their 44,000 acres of reserve land for the project to be feasible.

In 2010, by a community vote, Atikameksheng Anishnawkek signed onto the First Nations Land Management Act, which exempted them from the Indian Act and gave them control over their own laws, regulations and any leases in the business park.

"Until we initiated our own land codes through the Land Management Act, we couldn't start moving forward," said Miller. A feasibility study came shortly after with promising results.

"When the feasibility study was done in 2010, everything gave us a green light to build because of the location," said Miller, lust 20 minutes outside of Sudbury, the business park is across the highway from the railway and a five-minute drive from the Walden industrial park.

Letters of intent...