New life for cottage country: retail and residential building surge continues.

The four-laning of Highway 69/400 and the consumer demand for retirement and small town living has breathed new life in the cottage country community of Parry Sound.

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As the $2 billion highway expansion chugs north to Greater Sudbury, the pavement has had a noticeable impact in attracting outside investment and influencing and influencing development patterns.

The arrival of Wal-Mart four years ago signalled the green light for a flood of new retail near the revamped highway in-terchange at Bowes Street.

A new shopping district, Oastler Park Plaza, sprung up on the town's east side. It boasts major retailers such as a new Home Depot now under construction and a smattering of smaller stand-alone outlets. There's even a Starbucks going onto the new Canadian Tire gas bar.

All the activity convinced Wal-Mart to tack on an additional 30,000-square-foot to enlarge the store to 100,000-square-feet.

A Staples outlet is moving into the north-end Parry Sound Mall and a Boston Pizza is slated for the waterfront.

"It's been very encouraging," says Iain Laing, the Town of Parry Sound's community development director. "For a number of years, we've had some pretty big commercial development and in the last three or four years, we're starting to catch up on the residential side."

Historically, the home building sector bumped along with five or six new permits issued each year. In the last three years, it has moved from 14, to 13, to 19 permits.

Retirees raised in Parry Sound or summered at area cottages have slowly trickled back to take up permanent residence.

Laing theorizes price increases in area seasonal properties has impacted on homes in town making it now worthwhile for contractors to build subdivisions, rather than single multimillion-dollar cottages.

One such beehive of activity is Prospect Point, a new upscale subdivision by Distler Construction is underway at the end of Waubeek Street on a forested ridge overlooking the bay.

Fritz Distler and son Alex started pouring foundations in May 2007 for the first of 27 custom-built homes on a cul-de-sac next to the town's fitness trail.

Distler, who specializes in building 6,000-square-foot Georgian Bay cottages, was approached by the property owner to take on the project.

The homes, which range between 2,200 and 4,000-square foot, are worth as much as $750,000. Many are bought by local move-up buyers or former residents moving back from southern Ontario.

Distler, a Bavarian-born master carpenter who moved to Parry Sound from Germany 20 years ago, says this kind of development is long overdue.

"These projects are definitely good for Parry Sound. This is almost 10 years too late. Parry Sound offers everything. Mus-koka has the water, but not like Georgian Bay."

But town planner Laing, says there's still a need for affordable units to lure young people back.

Brantford developer Gabriel Kirchberger helped alleviate some that problem by picking up the former West Parry Sound Health Centre in 2005 and renovated the 100-year-old building, adding 62 apartments including 20 affordable units.

Another development, Thunder Bay Creek by Hall Construction has built eight homes near the high school but has 20 lots for sale in the first stage of a larger subdivision project.

Small developers have approached the town proposing everything from triplexes to upscale condos.

The waterfront also factors heavily into future residential growth.

Gravenhurst developer Evanco, builder of that town's Muskoka Wharf project, has similar master plans for Parry Sound's harbour lands. The town signed on to the concept to eventually build out about 100 acres of waterfront over the next decade.

The company will have to knit together a parcel of eight private properties for their mixed use concept of residual and commercial with full public access through a promenade, boat launches and docks.

Behind that on an elevated property, developer Jim Sturino has plans for 70 condo units overlooking the harbour and marina operator Rudy Krist has draft plan approval for a 10-unit townhouse complex.

A big source of frustration for the town officials are the former Shell and Imperial Oil tank farm properties. Both are located on prime waterfront sites, but in Imperial's case, the 15-acre docklands are in need of environment remediation.

Laing says Imperial is not in any desperate need to rid themselves of the property, much less clean up the soil, unless the federal and provincial government pick up the tab to relieve the oil company of environmental liability.

Shell sold their 11-acre property to a private company, which Laing says may be receptive to sell.

On the institutional and infrastructure side, the Belvedere Heights Home for the Aged, has renovated space to add 30 lifelong apartments, and the construction is moving on the third phase of the town's $18 million sewage treatment plant.

In manufacturing, boatmakers Connor Industries has added an 8,000-square-foot expansion.

www.distlerconstruction.ca

www.town.parry-sound.on.ca

By IAN ROSS 

Northern Ontario Business