Coming attractions boomtown Atikokan? Atikokan showcases itself for new construction.

• Author: Ross, Ian

A slew of coming new industrial development has the Town of Atikokan rolling out the welcome mat to investors.

The sleepy northwestern Ontario town of 3,300 is making early preparations to host one of Canada's largest open-pit gold mines.

The municipality has released an accommodations study to entice builders to beat a path down Highway 11 to the former iron ore mining town, 180 km west of Thunder Bay.

With a new mine on the horizon and several other job-creating developments on the schedule, the town anticipates a surge of construction workers arriving in the very near future, followed by the more permanent jobs in mining, power generation and wood pellet manufacturing.

A report by Crupi Consulting of Thunder Bay said Atikokan is facing a severe shortage of housing with "almost zero availability" for homes and rental units.

Five major development projects, plus an addition onto the hospital, could create an estimated 1,500 to 1,700 construction jobs over the next five to seven years, followed by the promise of as many as 800 to 1,000 permanent jobs.

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For a town that's dealt with a decade's worth of disappointment in the forest industry, good fortune is coming in waves.

Osisko Mining expects to have 14 years of gold production if its Hammond Reef open-pit operation starts up in 2016.

The Montreal miner told Crupi they anticipate creating 800 construction jobs in 2013 and 2014, followed by 540 mining jobs by 2015.

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Ontario Power Generation's (OPG) former coal burning plant, the Atikokan Generating Station, is undergoing a $170-million conversion to handle wood pellets. A workforce of 200 arrives on site next year.

A start-up company, Atikokan Renewable Fuels, is refurbishing the former Fibratech particle-board plant to make wood pellets. The plant could create jobs for 157 if its secures contracts with OPG and with European utilities.

There are also more spinoffs expected if Bending Lake Iron Group develops its iron ore property near Ignace, 70 km to the north. The company will need a construction crew of 170 starting in 2016 and expects a more permanent workforce of 64 by 2017.

A long-shot possibility is Cassandra Enterprises, which has tentative plans for a 1,300-megawatt hydroelectric pump storage project in one of the water-filled pits of the old Steep Rock mine. It could generate 20 to 40 jobs, but the province has declared that environmentally sensitive area to be off-limits to development...