February 03, 2011
City will do fine, waterfront development official says
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John Chilibeck
Telegraph-Journal
SAINT JOHN - The grim news was delivered Monday at Irving Oil's Golden Ball building on Union Street at 8 p.m.
KâtÈ Braydon/Telegraph-Journal
A sign on a fence at Long Wharf on Tuesday promotes the proposed Irving Oil Ltd. headquarters that is now officially dead.
Charles Swanton, chairman of Saint John Waterfront Development, had escaped the deathly cold outside, but it was hardly heart-warming stuff around the boardroom.
Three Irving Oil Ltd. executives - Andrew Carson, Blaine Higgs and Daniel Goodwin - told a small crowd of VIPs that the company's world headquarters project on Long Wharf was kaput.
"It's all a bit of a shock," Swanton said Tuesday. "It's unfortunate, but certainly market conditions, I would think, have a bearing on this. The Irving group of companies haven't made a lot of mistakes to get them where they are today. Even though it wasn't something we wanted to hear, the economic climate was such that, I guess, from time to time you expect stuff like this."
Swanton had heard rumours about the demise of the celebrated waterfront plans, but was still surprised that they weren't going ahead.
With the death of the scheme, the energy company will not put money into the revitalization of the Fort La Tour historic site beside Long Wharf. It will remain a hill with a few token cedar poles. Gone, too, is the plan to provide more trees, trails and public space.
But like many officials, Swanton said he was unshaken in his faith that the city would do just fine and that the revitalization of Saint John's waterfront would continue.
Just two weeks ago, his organization held a special open house at the New Brunswick Museum on all the projects lined up for waterfront development. More than 400 people attended.
The projects included Partridge Island, the Reversing Falls - which officials want to rename the Reversing Rapids - the Stone hammer geopark, Harbourside condominiums and Long Wharf slip.
"It wasn't solely about Long Wharf," Swanton said. "Waterfront development still has momentum, and we have all kinds of projects were working on. So we're just going to have to work a little harder, that's all."
All of these projects, he pointed out, are stand-alone works-in-progress that don't require the construction of an office building on Long Wharf.
Swanton said the big project Saint John Waterfront Development has been working on is Reversing Falls. It's still an official New Brunswick tourist destination and one of the most popular sites among tourists who come to the city.
"Even though it's slipped in the last few years, hopefully we can bring it back."
Harbour Passage, the popular waterfront trail, has a new vantage point for people to look at rapids on the south side of the bridge. It won't be too long, he suggested, until the whole area is revitalized.
It requires a lot of cash - $35 million - and would be developed over a 10- to 15-year period.
"You need a plan to go forward with, and I think we've developed a good one," he said. "Little bite-sized chunks at a time, that's what we'll try to do."