Facility looks set to reach finish line
Oro Station motorsports project’s developers seem to be on right track
I haven’t done an exact count, but over the past 20 years I have written at least a halfdozen columns about new motorsport facilities or speedways that were going to be built in the province of Ontario.
There was the Canada’s Wonderland-area speedway and the Cayuga Speedway that would be rebuilt to look like the Richmond, Va., speedway. Both were going to have Indy cars and NASCAR stock cars.
Then there was the Niagara Falls Speedway, which was different than the Fort Erie Speedway. That one had Jeff Gordon involved. He designed the oval track. (I could do that: you take a pencil and a piece of paper and you draw a circle.) The promoters actually brought him up to Toronto to talk about it. It was going to be more than a track, Gordon said. It would be an automotive proving ground and industrial site and look, even McMaster University was a partner.
The only trouble with all those plans and schemes was that nobody had any money.
Which brings me to a development north of Barrie in Oro-Medonte Township, at the intersection of Highway 11 and the Township’s Seventh Line. Called Oro Station, it is going to have a 16-turn, 4.1-kilometre road-racing circuit designed for modern GT and vintage-car racing (it can be split into two courses), houses, townhouses, “barn” garages and 500,000 square feet of industrial space to house everything from automobile upholstery shops to museums to engineering and manufacturing space.
It will be a hub for automotive research and development. Ground breaking will take place on Aug. 20 and it will be a three- to eight-year project.
Zoning is in place, it has been designated an employment zone, and there are approvals for just about everything at the municipal, county and provincial levels. Of particular importance is that it is adjacent to the Lake Simcoe Regional Airport, a commercial point of entry to the country with Canadian border services on site and a 6,000-foot runway, capable of receiving 737size aircraft. So noise will not be a problem.
Know what? I think this is serious and will actually happen. Why? Because this, in the end, is a land development and the two guys behind it are land developers. One, in fact, has just completed a condominium development in Orillia and is starting on another project there, a waterfront market not unlike Toronto’s St. Lawrence Market.
The two are Daniel Gallo, the founding partner, and Geoffrey Campbell, the managing partner. I talked to Campbell and if enthusiasm counts, this thing will be a success about a minute after shovels go into the ground. Talk about a dynamo. Give him 10 minutes and people are reaching for their chequebooks.
In a nutshell, this is the deal. There will be a race track (a “smart” track that can be run by a digital system with in-car feedback and digital flagging systems all controlled by sensors) where people who can afford it can drive/race their exotic cars and then leave them there in rented space.
Those folks will belong to a club, the Bexley Motor Club, and there will be an initiation fee and annual dues. You can buy a house or a townhouse. If you are a corporation in the automotive business and are looking for a place to do your design, your R&D and your testing, this will be the place.
But these guys will not build anything in hopes of selling or renting. Instead, you will make the deal to purchase (or join the motor club) and they will take the money and build whatever-it-is you’ve bought, starting with the track and progressing through the real estate.
“This will not be a ‘Field of Dreams,’” Campbell emphasized. “We will control the architecture so it all has one theme. And there won’t be spectator events. But we could maybe run a race in the Porsche GT Series and stream it. Maybe.
“We have a signed partnership with Georgian College,” he continued.
“It’s a curriculum partnership involving their electrical engineering division (EVs) and their work with autonomous cars, which will soon be coming on strong. We can do winter testing for them, and others, by putting summer asphalt temperatures into the grid. Very little is impossible.”
Development is not without its risks, Campbell admits. Nothing is a slam-dunk.
“There are hurdles to climb,” he said. “The biggest thing is knowing what hurdles. We’re not talking concepts for land we have an option for. We own this land. We’ve got site alteration and zoning. We’re not promoters who are telling people, ‘Look at my great idea; somebody come and fund this thing.’ I’ve got my chainsaw with me. I’m up here clearing trees.
“If I have to build this thing myself, I will.”