April 15, 2004

Growth strategy making inroads

Group tackling issues of immigration, jobs, waterways, investment, funding and e-commerce

(Peter Walsh/Telegraph-Journal)
Tim Maloney makes a grand entrance during a Saint John Growth Strategy meeting Wednesday morning

BY GRANT KERR
Telegraph-Journal

With seven action priorities, nine additional recommendations and the involvement of five communities, there are many places where the Saint John Growth Strategy could become un-tracked.

But six months after the much-ballyhooed launch, that initial momentum seems to be continuing.

One of the biggest jobs falls on the shoulders of UNBSJ arts dean, Robert MacKinnon.

Dr. MacKinnon is in charge of the community audit committee that is supposed to keep the whole strategy on track. That's not always easy when there are five communities involved that have their own well being in mind, Dr. MacKinnon said.

Those communities include Saint John, St. Martins, Rothesay, Quispamsis and Grand Bay-Westfield. Saint John, Quispamsis and Rothesay, in particular, have frequently feuded publicly over resources and funding.

"They have their own interests. I am saying you have to try to look at the big picture," Dr. MacKinnon said Wednesday, following Growth Strategy update at the Saint John Trade and Convention Centre.

He said he was particularly impressed with how work on the E-Commerce Cluster at the old Coast Guard site at Market Slip is coming, as well as progress on waterways, which includes Harbour Passage, the Fundy Parkway, Fort La Tour and the Marco Polo project.

A Wednesday breakfast meeting was kicked off by the grand entrance of Tim Maloney, who was dressed as an explorer. The tri-corn hat swashbuckler, who launched the growth strategy last October at Harbour Station, arrived at the event in a sparkling white SUV truck. Fittingly, it was a Ford Explorer.

Mr. Maloney worked the room, talking about the work that had gone on with the growth strategy before turning the floor over to a number of speakers who brought in updates.

Enterprise Saint John CEO Steve Carson said that funding the Growth Strategy is going well.

"We have a number of significant commitments from the private sector," Mr. Carson said, noting that about $750,000 will be raised this year alone. Those funding partners will be announced publicly at the end of next month.

Meanwhile, Capt. Alwyn Soppit, CEO of the Saint John Port Authority said that a new gangway for the port will be arriving in the next two or three weeks for the gargantuan Voyageur of the Seas which will arrive in May.

Following is a point-by-point look at the growth strategy action plan:

  • E-commerce cluster: Mr. Carson said that the biggest issue in the whole waterfront strategy is wastewater clean-up. He announced an innovative strategy in which that cleanup and the business centre is being rolled into a package that is attracting attention at both federal and provincial levels.
  • "In the 10 years that I have been involved we have not had the attention of the senior level bureaucrats than we have had on this project," he said.
  • He also noted that a business plan for the waterfront business centre that will bring together elements of New Brunswick Community College - Saint John, UNBSJ and the National Research Council is coming together.
  • Communications: Hawk Communications is in the midst of developing a website for the growth strategy with stories about development offered online. The public relations firm will be announcing growth strategy funding partners by mid-May, according to Growth Strategy communications chairman Jack Keir.
  • Waterways: Enterprise Saint John chairman Dale Knox noted that phase II of Harbour Passage is well under way and that it will be open in June. St. Martins' will soon be announcing its business plan for finishing the Fundy Parkway.
  • Meanwhile, the Town of Grand Bay-Westfield has finished its waterfront development plan. Bill MacMackin, chairman of the waterfront strategy, said his team is working on identifying all sites that are ripe for development.
  • There will also continue to be a focus on Fort La Tour, Fort Howe and Market Slip, the latter of which will be opened up to more pleasure craft.
  • Business Support and Retention: This group is in the midst of working with different organizations and the province and are impressing on employers how important they are to the region's economy.
  • Entrepreneur Development: Thinking young is the name of the game here, with about 2,040 students from high schools, community college and university students contacted and informed about possible business opportunities.
  • A high school business plan competition is even being developed. Small Business Interactive get together once a month and hashes out a particular topic. One project that is getting off the ground is an Outdoor Christmas Market in front of Market Square, which will attract 40 young entrepreneurs who will be selling their wares. That follows in the footsteps of the successful Market By the Sea event last summer.
  • Investment Attraction: This encapsulates information technology and communications, tourism, health sciences and energy. Tourism Saint John is looking to become incorporated as a public-private partnership in order to shore up stable funding.

Meanwhile, a movement is still afoot to try to get a hotel tax levy that will help greater Saint John market itself.

  • Enterprise Saint John's Neil Jacobsen said there are two major information and communications technology conferences coming, the first of which will be in May. That will be a pan-Atlantic conference involving all four Atlantic provinces. In the energy sector, an Energy Institute is being proposed, a policy organization that will release timely information on the energy sector in the Maritimes.
  • Immigration: Mr. Knox spoke of 15 delegations of potential economic immigrants coming to the area this year including people from Australia, China, India, Iran, Lebanon and Korea.
  • Businesswoman Beth Kelly also spoke about Advantage Saint John, a group that promotes bilingualism in the area. She will be doing road trips around the province selling Saint John as a destination for francophones with its upcoming francophone festival, 400 anniversary celebrations of French settlement and the Tall Ships festival.