Site to inject $12m annually into economy. (Special Report: Sudbury).

Science North currently welcomes approximately 220,000 visitors on an annual basis, but a new dimension will soon be added to the science centre, which is expected to boost visitor numbers by thousands.

Dynamic Earth is Northern Ontario's newest and most promising attraction. Dedicated to earth science, the centre is expected to be opened on the former Big Nickel Mine site in 2003. Science North's director of business development, Guy Labine, is already excited and expects that the attraction will draw approximately 110,000 additional people to the area every year. He believes that all of those visitors and the money that they spend while they are in the city will ultimately add up to big business for Greater Sudbury.

"We are expecting about 107,000 visitors to come to Dynamic Earth on an annual basis, so that increases the impact of the number of visitors that are staying in local hotels, motels and restaurants," Labine says. "Dynamic Earth is a huge increase to the tourism asset Sudbury has to offer to tourists. It is another reason for people to come here from outside and spend more than just one day or two days visiting the community. It starts to create a very strong arguement for visitors to stay overnight and multiple nights potentially because of the opportunities for them to expand on what they can do and see and what types of activities they can participate in."

A recent study conducted by Price Waterhouse Cooper indicates that the economic impact of the attraction is expected to generate approximately $12 million a year for the local economy directly and through additional spending. In addition, 60 new jobs are expected to be created as a result of that additional spending, according to the study.

According to Science North's projections Dynamic Earth will create 312 construction jobs between 2001 and 2003. The new attraction will also create 18 direct and indirect operating jobs, as well as 109 new private-sector jobs in Sudbury, by attracting new tourists and extending the length of their visits.

The capital costs and investment into the attraction, the building, furnishings and equipment, galleries and exhibits, landscaping and site work, project management costs, pre-opening and startup costs, and existing assets add up to $14.35 million.

Labine notes the payoffs will far outweigh any costs.

"We already know that visitors are coming to Sudbury to visit Science North, so it creates another reason for people, who maybe would not be coming already, to come, and for those people that are already coming, to extend the length of their stay," Labine says. "That is really where the community starts to benefit and derive the economic benefits is by having people staying overnight in local accommodations, buying meals, food and fuel."

"There were 50,000 people a year that used to visit the Big Nickel Mine," he adds. "It has been closed for the last three years. While this project has been ongoing, we have received a countless number of calls from people wanting to know when they would be able to visit the Big Nickel Mine again. Well, this is not an enhanced or refurbished Big Nickel Mine. It is a complete transformation of that project and a complete transformation of that site into a new attraction."

Through interactive exhibits, multimedia theatre shows, and a very different site interpretation, the $15.3-million attraction promises to give visitors a unique opportunity to discover the geology of the Sudbury basin and the connection between the mines and the community over the last century.

"The highlight of the attraction is going to be a seven-storey-deep chasm that people will descend into in a glass-enclosed elevator and they will be watching a multimedia show as they descend, so it will be quite spectacular," says Science North's marketing communications specialist, Nancy Griffin. "Once they reach the bottom, they will go on an underground tour in a mining time-tunnel, so they will see what mines were like at the turn of the century."

As they continue on the tour, Griffin explains that they will view modern-day mines as well, allowing visitors to view the progression and transformation of the mining industry in the community over the last 100 years. Above ground, Griffin indicates that visitors can also view two exhibit galleries and an object-theatre show entitled "Heritage Theatre," which retraces 120 years of Sudbury's mining history and culture.