Expansions aimed at positioning town as destination.

There was a time when Elliot Lake was considered entirely a retirement community, but Destination Elliot Lake is being developed as a way of encouraging people to think of the city as a place to have fun, as well as retire to.

Destination Elliot Lake is a multi-year grouping of projects started by the City of Elliot Lake to position the city as more than just a retirement community, says tourism and leisure director Daniel Gagnon.

On the docket for Destination Elliot Lake is $14 million in projects to expand the area's golf course, develop several lakefront cottage lots, expand the Mount Dufour Ski Hill, improve trail infrastructure and create a mining heritage centre.

"We have decided to phase it in because it was a little ambitious to try to pull off $14 million all at once," Gagnon quips. "We did take a step in the right direction last year so we have the golf course construction underway and fully funded with $3.8 million from the city and $1 million from Elliot Lake Retirement Living. It's under construction now and ahead of schedule. We're hoping for an opening in late summer or early fall of 2005.

"Our cottage lot project is also going quite well," he adds. "We sold 24 cottage lots last fall. We sold all the road and hydro access lots and, of the 12 water-access only lots, we sold three of them recently. There is some market for access lots. That's going to be a multi-year project."

The city has a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR) that limits the amount of land that can be sold and what development work can take place on the lots that are sold. The city also has certain covenants on the land to prevent real estate speculation by requiring a cottage be developed at least to the framing stage within three to five years. Failure to meet that time-line allows the municipality to repurchase the property again at 80 per cent of the original selling price.

"We want to stimulate the construction industry and create some jobs," says Gagnon.

Elliot Lake also has applications in with Human Resources Development Canada to fund labour to develop various trails, including ATV and non-motorized trails. Funding applications are also being filled out for a miners' memorial for the 50th Anniversary for next year.

"The due diligence is there, we just have to rework them into a format acceptable to NOHFC, FedNor and Heritage Canada, given the heritage spin we're going to put on it," says Gagnon. "We're hoping to have that phase taken care of in 2004, then we'll have to look at having the ski hill and other aspects of Destination Elliot Lake ready for next year."

Gagnon says the impetus for the project arises from the provincial government in late 2000 announcing a $14.5-million redevelopment fund for the North Shore region following the indefinite deferral of the Patten Post hydroelectric generation plant. The Northern Ontario Heritage Fund Corp. (NOHFC) administers the fund.

"That got us thinking, what do we want to spend our Patten Post money on?" he says. "Basically, the idea was tourism. We want to move the economy away from a single industry based on retirement. We want to work our strengths and continue to support the retirement industry but we also want to move into tourism and continue diversifying.

"If you think of this area as a resort, come here, stay in a hotel, you can do everything here that you can do in a resort all within 10 minutes of the city centre. So we're trying to figure out a way to package and improve the assets of our attractions and activities," Gagnon says. "That's the genesis of this. Let's put everything we want to do in one funding application."

He says the initial plans called for using Patten Post funds to upgrade the community's golf course, but there was some trepidation by provincial officials on funds being used to improve a town's golf course. As a result, funding went through a more circuitous route with Patten Post being used under the Northern Communities Capital Assistance Program to improve community infrastructure while other municipal funds were used to begin the golf course upgrades.

Regional Patten Post funds also financed cottage lot development, he says.

Gagnon says industrial development is minimal in part because of Elliot Lake's distance from any major markets although there is a funding application to the NOHFC to build a new hanger facility to help retain Air Bravo Corp.

"We haven't totally lost track of it, but if we see an opportunity, we pursue it," he says.

Gagnon says there has been some opposition to the plan from residents of the city who are opposed to municipal money being used to improve a golf course instead of lower taxes. However, the response from municipal council has been that the projects being done under Destination Elliot Lake are intended to ensure the long-term economic health of the city.

"Existing business are pretty excited," he says. "The more tourists that come in, the better it is for them."

By ANDREW WAREING

Northern Ontario Business