Economic driver

Harbour driving development. That was the theme of this year’s Port Days in Sydney and it certainly proved apt, given all of the related news in the last few days.

First came word that Sydney developer Marty Chernin is seeking a “land swap” with the Cape Breton Regional Municipality in order to build his 47-unit apartment complex.

The complex is part of a proposed multi-million dollar project that includes an 80,000-square-foot commercial mid-rise building, a possible 96-room extension to the Holiday Inn hotel, a relocated Casino Nova Scotia and a marine activity centre that could include Ambassatour’s amphibious harbour hopper.

And in the midst of it all, should the plan ever come to fruition, would be a much-coveted (by some at least) new library.

It’s an ambitious project and one which, along with the second berth and the relocation of the Nova Scotia Community College Marconi campus, would dramatically transform the Sydney waterfront.

One holdup, however, is that the site of a new downtown library has still not been finalized nor have any funding arrangements been hammered out by the three levels of government.

Perhaps it’s time to make this more of a priority because talks regarding a new library have been making the rounds for at least a decade without much, if any, headway. In the meantime, new libraries have been built in Halifax, Antigonish and Truro. These library initiatives are in addition to significant library upgrades in the South Shore and Annapolis Valley.

More harbour development news arrived this week in the form of a joint business venture between Canadian Maritime Engineering Inc. and Membertou to manufacturing fishing boats.

Located adjacent to the Coast Guard College in Westmount, renovations are nearly complete at the facility, where the boats will be manufactured using hulls produced by Samson Enterprises in Petit-de-Grat.

The operation could get underway by this fall, employ 10 people full-time and several others part-time and produce a dozen boats a year, with up to three boats under construction at a time.

That brings us back to Port Days where there was little new information but some that warrants repeating.

For instance, Sydney will be hosting nearly 100 cruise ships carrying an estimated 215,000 passengers and crew in 2018. In the last 10 years, the number of cruise ships visiting CBRM has increased a staggering 182 per cent with the number of passengers increasing 172 per cent.

And with construction of the second berth commencing this summer and due for completion by next summer those numbers are sure to increase.

Over in North Sydney, Marine Atlantic, which has spent millions in upgrades in recent years, reported a third consecutive year of passenger traffic increases (to an estimated 327,000). That’s the first time in two decades this has happened.

There is more. Much more, but the theme remains the same. Sydney harbour is driving development in the Cape Breton Regional Municipality. The evidence is all around us.

“The evidence is all around us.”