City looking for home-grown development ideas: public asked for advice on tourism, infrastructure projects.

• Author: Ross, Ian
• Position: SAULT STE. MARIE

The City of Sault Ste. Marie is reaching out the masses for big ideas on how to develop a prime waterfront site and attract government economic stimulus dollars to the community.

Perhaps inspired by the words of Australian economist Peter Kenyon at last February's Think North Summit in Thunder Bay, the city is out to engage its citizens for development ideas for new tourist attraction and infrastructure projects.

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A new Gateway committee. led by economic development executive director Bruce Strapp will be reviewing public feedback this spring along with contacting some previous corporate tire-kickers who were weeded out of the city's earlier review processes for the waterfront property.

The city has endured several failed attempts with various developers who have either lost interest or failed to deliver anything on the 14-acre St. Mary' River site.

"We've taken a step back and taken a made-in-Sault Ste. Marie or Ontario solution," said Mike Wozny, executive director of Development Sault Ste. Marie.

The brownfield site has been a vacant garden of agony for the city for more than a decade. With the departure of Toronto's CCI Development Group last November, the list of wanna-be developers who have either dropped away or produced nothing, has grown to six.

CCi backed out of a development proposal with the city to build a tourism and mixed use attraction on the west edge of the downtown near the casino and International Bridge.

CCI ended their brief relationship with the city citing tough economic conditions and even tighter financial markets.

Before that Toronto developer Phil Garforth and his Legacy Group had a bad breakup with the city after generating no project financing and missing several deadlines. He has since taken his bio-dome concept to Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan where the project appears dead.

Though city residents have been frustrated and bemused by the repeated Request for Proposals process, Wozny remains upbeat.

"Sometimes things work, sometimes they don't, you just keep working forward."

The city is still holding out for $15 million' in Northern Ontario Heritage Fund promised a decade ago for 'destination tourist attractions. for Northern Ontario cities. City officials' have been promised that money remains available.

Wozny said whatever feedback comes forth has to be framed as tourist attraction.

Proposing to green it over into full fledged parkland is a non-starter, he said.

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