Opening the door to industrial tenants: Timmins awarded funding for industrial rail park.

• Author: Kelly, Lindsay
• Position: CONSTRUCTION

It may have arrived just in time for April Fools' Day, but a funding announcement of close to $2.5 million for Timmins' new industrial rail park was no joke.

On March 31, the province announced it was providing the city with $2,485,650 from the Northern Ontario Heritage Fund Corp. to help complete water, road and hydro upgrades, as well as the construction of a rail spur, for the 36-acre industrial park in the east end of the city.

Timmins Mayor Steve Black said the work had been some time in the making.

"Our economic development group, staff at Ministry of Northern Development and Mines, Ontario Northland Transportation Commission, and all our provincial partners have been working really well together to get the provincial support there," he said.

"Almost two and a half million dollars of funding to help establish that park is great news for the city of Timmins and job and growth opportunities going forward."

The city has committed $500,000 to the project, and has applied to FedNor for an additional $2.5 million to round out the cost of the park's development.

The anchor tenant for the park, Texas-headquartered Calabrian Corp., announced last October it was setting up shop in the city, and it's well on its way to building its liquid sulphur dioxide plant, which will cater to the mining, paper, and water treatment industries.

In mining, liquid sulphur dioxide is used to destroy the cyanide that's commonly used in a process to extract gold from ore.

The industrial park's rail spur line is being constructed in direct response to Calabrian, which said having rail access was a key factor in deciding to move its plant to Timmins.

Black said much of the prep work is already finished and was done in conjunction with the other partners while the city waited for a land transfer sale to close. But planning is now fully underway and construction will begin this building season.

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