Mayor Ian Hamilton sang the praises of North Battleford's strong economic progress before directors of the Battlefords Chamber of Commerce Tuesday night.
Hamilton, along with City Manager Jim Toye and Councillors Ron Crush, Grace Lang and Rhonda Seidel (who is also a Chamber director), met the directors during their regular monthly meeting.
Their visit with Chamber directors served as an update on what was going on at City Hall, particularly focusing on the economic development activity happening around the community.
Hamilton had positive news to share. He relayed the latest building permit numbers that showed 135 permits had been issued for a total value of over $39 million through October - almost double the $20 million in permits from the same period the previous year.
That figure includes 28 new residential permits for $6.9 million, way ahead of the 14 for $3.3 million issued last year through October. That continues a housing boom that goes back to 2007 when there were 54 housing starts - at that time, the most housing starts in 20 years.
"It demonstrates a fair amount of investment in our community," Hamilton said of the permit numbers.
Hamilton also pointed to the four building permits issued for $10.6 million in the new industrial category. A portion of that total comes from the SaskPower power generation plant in the city's southeast.
The mayor told the directors further good building permit news is on the way soon. He told the directors the current numbers have yet to include Harwood Manor, a private care home project or permits for the CUPlex aquatic centre and theatre.
Those multimillion-dollar projects are expected to be included in the permit statistics before long and would bring values for the year even higher - past $76 million, the mayor said.
As far as construction of the other two components of the CUPlex - the field house and curling centre - Hamilton told directors he expects decisions will be made by the City on engaging a contractor for those facilities in the next couple of weeks. Hamilton said he planned to meet further with the curling and the soccer association representatives to discuss those two projects.
Hamilton also noted other construction activity throughout the city, including the building of the new Great Canadian Oil Change next to Frontier Mall, the construction of the new McDonald's building adjacent to the existing one on Railway Avenue and the new Fisher strip mall on 100th Street.
The mayor told the directors he expects to see many new jobs created due to the spike in construction. The Harwood Manor project is expected to create at least 50 permanent jobs, he said.
Hamilton also expressed his strongest confidence yet that the provincial government would soon commit to construction on a new Saskatchewan Hospital in the near future. Hamilton said he hopes to see that happen within the next two years.
There discussion about issues relevant to Chamber members. One topic discussed was the possibility of the City introducing more building incentives to attract businesses to the community. Toye said the city is looking at introducing incentives to attract business to the downtown core.
Tax exemptions had previously been brought in, Toye said, to address specific needs, such as five-year exemptions granted to attract two new high end hotels to fill that void.
The subject of revitalizing the downtown core proved a hot topic, as City officials highlighted continuing efforts towards revitalization of the area.
Chamber director Derek Schmidt of Bill and Don's Men's Wear provided his strong opinions on the subject, railing against vagrancy and drunkenness on the streets. He told the mayor it "doesn't matter how many fancy buildings go up," nothing would change until the vagrancy issue was addressed.
Schmidt said he drove guest speaker Barbara Glanz into the community for her presentation at the Don Ross Centre. He purposely made sure to steer clear of his place of business because of the vagrants in the area at that early hour of the morning.
"At that point of the year, they're everywhere," said Schmidt, who said even he isn't comfortable walking in that area in the morning.
Some chamber directors vented further frustration about how effective a greater RCMP presence downtown would be, noting the new RCMP building was situated downtown and seemed to have little impact on the situation.
Councillor Ron Crush waded in on the discussion and stressed patience, as transforming the downtown wouldn't happen overnight and wasn't likely to be accomplished through a "quick fix" solution.
"It's not going to magically appear in a wonderland form," Crush said, "but it is going to evolve in a direction of a more desirable area."
