The ‘new urbanism’ a tough sell in Barrie - Mayor Jeff Interviewed

Barrie is hardly the first place you would go to see the new urbanism that is sweeping North American cities. The bedroom community of 140,000 an hour’s drive up the 400 highway from Toronto is about as suburban as you can get, with vast tracts of subdivisions, malls and business parks.

Like many Ontario cities, though, Barrie is changing. The provincial government’s growth plan for the Greater Golden Horseshoe requires all municipalities above a certain size to ensure that 40 per cent of residential growth takes place within built-up areas from 2015 on. The idea is to combat, even reverse, decades of sprawl and concentrate development around dense urban hubs.

For a place like Barrie, it is a tall order. Yet under its energetic freshman mayor, Jeff Lehman, 37, the city is embracing the challenge. It expects to see its population grow by 70,000 over the next 20 years. Instead of gobbling up more farmland, it wants to channel half of that growth into the existing urban area. “That’s a sea change for us,” says Mr. Lehman.

The city’s urban plan aims to encourage developers to build in the horseshoe-shaped city centre surrounding Kempenfelt Bay, the western arm of Lake Simcoe. It wants to see them build apartment blocks, condos and townhouses in key areas, especially around “transit nodes” such as the city’s two GO stations. If developers build subdivisions outside the centre, the city wants them to make room for village squares, small parks and nearby shops so residents don’t have to jump in the car to do everything.

To further reduce reliance on the car, Mr. Lehman wants to remake the inefficient old transit system, which sends buses out from a central terminal in a flower-petal pattern. A new bus-route network will criss-cross the city so that commuters can get around the urban area instead of just in and out of downtown. Authorities plan to run buses every 15 minutes on main routes instead of every half hour and keep buses running later into the evening. The city is even planning a network of bike paths.

Mr. Lehman is the first to admit that new urbanism is sometimes a hard sell in a city where nine out of 10 residents still use a car to get around. But on a walk around downtown, he points out some encouraging signs of change.

Right across from his city hall office, a developer is building an eight-storey office block, the first on such a scale in two decades. Buyers lined up around the corner when the attached condominiums went on sale. More condos and apartments are planned or under construction down on the waterfront, including Harmony Village, a complex of townhouses and residential towers with a distinctly urban look.

Back of the waterfront in the historic downtown, the city has been fostering a cultural hub. The city already has an attractive modern art gallery, the MacLaren Art Centre, and a 200-seat theatre with two active troupes, one Shakespearean, one avant garde.

There is good eating, too. Mr. Lehman boasts that Barrie has no less than 65 independently owned restaurants and an array of bars and pubs that keep the main streets humming into the small hours. Downtown vacancies, a problem for many small or mid-sized cities, are down to seven out of 150 storefronts from 25 out of 150 three years ago.

Not all the city’s efforts have been a success. Redevelopment of the restored old train station has stalled. No developer has moved in to build on the vacant lot left by a downtown blaze either, leaving a glaring gap in the streetscape. When the city built widened plank sidewalks on one downtown street to make room for restaurant patios, many residents complained about the lost parking spaces.

This, after all, is still Barrie. Mr. Lehman knows that. He isn’t out to turn it into Paris on Lake Simcoe. “Suburbs are not evil,” says Mr. Lehman. “What we are trying to recognize here is that there have been things we have lost along the way in designing suburbs that we need not have lost.”

By adopting a denser, more urban form where it can, Barrie hopes to master a difficult trick: growth without sprawl. Mayors around Ontario should be watching. If Barrie can do it, any city can.

Pedestrian walk on a a wooden boardwalk past a host of new shops and restaurants, including poutine, raw organic, gastronomie, indian, middle eastern, and Italian to name a few, are evident on Dunlop street in downtown Barrie on April 19, 2013. Source -- Global Mail

Barrie - Jobs - Hinduja Global Solutions considering setting up call centre in Barrie

Come springtime, a few hundred Barrie-area people looking for work could be celebrating.

It will be a few weeks yet before job seekers at the Hinduja Global Solutions (HGS) job fair at the Southshore Centre find out if they’ve found employment.

The company is considering setting up a call centre in Barrie for incoming customer service calls for telecommunications, financial and tech support firms. It is not a telemarketing company.

HGS Canada has opened three sites in Ontario in the past two years: Thunder Bay in 2010, North Bay in early 2011 and Belleville in the summer of 2012. If it decides to locate another facility in Barrie, it will be the sixth in the province and the 10th in Canada.

Kathy Follett-Lloyd, of HGS, said more than 2,000 applications were received online and more than 1,000 job seekers attended the job fair on Friday and Saturday.

Deciding whether or not HGS locates to Barrie will take some time, she added.

“The decision making-process will take us at least 30 to 60 days as we analyze the resumes and investigate possible locations for a centre,” she said Monday.

Hany Kirolos, the city’s director of economic development, said interest in the job fair was outstanding.

“Advance applications broke all previous records for similar exercises in other cities by HGS. The two-day in person job fair showing was also very strong,” he said.

“As an inbound call centre, it is part of the data warehousing value chain emerging as a huge cluster for the City of Barrie,” he said. “We will continue to work with HGS through their process and assist wherever we can to ensure we win this business.”

If that win comes to pass, it can only mean good things for Barrie, Kirolos said.

“Five hundred jobs from a single company, an in-bound call centre that’s going to train, a good brand name recognized for its excellence and promoting from within, all speak to why it’s so important — in any job market — to get this business,” he said. “It reinforces Barrie as a great place to do business for those considering to establish (or relocate) a new business

like HGS and its magnitude of investment.”

Kirolos said getting all the players involved in trying to secure HGS highlights the advantages of working to together.

“From the mayor and council, our MP and MPP, regional economic development departments and employment agencies: all got the word out, and it paid off,” he said.

The job application portal at www.joinhgs.com will remain open for several weeks to come to give all those who could not attend the job fair an opportunity to apply.

New Schools Coming to Barrie, Angus, Bradford & Orillia

Ministry funding new schools in the county

Simcoe County is shaking the dust off its shovels to build four new schools within the next three years.

The announcement comes from the Ministry of Education, which gave the nod to the Simcoe County District School Board and Simcoe Muskoka Catholic District School Board to build one new high school in south-end Barrie, another in Orillia, as well as public and Catholic elementary schools in Bradford, all opening by 2016.

“This is very positive for us,” said John Dance, superintendent of facility services at the Simcoe County School District Board. “On our list of capital projects in 2012, we put in our priorities with the hope of getting them built. We're really excited that on our list, the top three were all granted.”

The south-end Barrie school was originally slated to take the load off Barrie Central Collegiate as it aged and needed extensive boiler repairs. However, a partnership struck with the City of Barrie and the public school board during accommodation review committee (ARC) meetings in 2010 left Central open to students until at least 2014.

In a memorandum presented to Barrie city councillors Monday by Carla Ladd, the city's chief administrative officer, she noted they were pleased with the number and variety of proposals submitted to the city to build everything from residential developments, educational services, recreational facilities, childcare, food and beverage services, as well as for general interest on the Central site.

“We're still proceeding and working the school board, trying to find viable partners and to move forward with Barrie Central,” said city spokeswoman Rebecca James-Reid.

The new south-end school, currently referred to as the New South Barrie secondary school, will be built in the general area of south Mapleview Drive on the east side of Yonge Street with an expected opening date of 2016, Dance said.

The Bradford South West elementary school – expected to open in 2014 — is also a growth school, taking the overflow from Fieldcrest Elementary.

The new Orillia secondary school is a replacement school for both Park Street Secondary School and Orillia District Collegiate and Vocational Institute which will be opened on the Park Street school lands in 2015.

“In Orillia, there are two older facilities and enrolment is down from where it was a few years ago,” Dance said, adding it will be up to the community to chose a new name for the conjoined school.

The south-end Barrie and Orillia's high schools will cost $26.5 million and $27.5 million respectively. The public elementary will come in around $9.7 million.

Dance said in previous years, the ministry has approved schools that weren't considered the county's top priorities, but decisions were based on funding models at the time.

Hewitt's Creek Public School, the last public school built in Barrie, in 2009, has more than 200 children in kindergarten and Innisdale Secondary School can't handle the incoming load. It was built for 1,150 students and currently has more than 1,700.

“It's well over capacity,” Dance said. “The South Barrie (school) wasn't granted on numbers currently in the system, but the kids coming up in the schools now.”

Other items on the board's wish list to build or replace that weren't addressed by the ministry this time around, include additions to Innisfil Central Public School, Elmvale District High School, Victoria Harbour Elementary School and Nottawasaga Creemore Public School. Both Ardtrea Cumberland Beach Elementary School and Midland Secondary School, which are slated for replacement or consolidation, were also put forward to another year's budget.

“Our board has made great efforts to make capital requests that are financially sound and more importantly, based on the long-term needs of both our current and future students,” said Robert North, chairman of the Simcoe County District School Board.

The ministry also released another $9.4 million for a new Catholic elementary school in the town of Bradford West Gwillimbury.

It's expected to hold 470 students and will open in September 2015.

"This is a high growth area and we have been experiencing a shortage of space in our Bradford West Gwillimbury schools," said Brian Beal, director of education at the Simcoe Muskoka Catholic board.

"We are very pleased that the Ministry of Education recognized the need for this new Catholic school. The students, staff and families in this community will benefit greatly from a new facility,” he said.

Cheryl Brown, Examiner - Photo - Nottawasaga Pines Secondary School Principal Chris Samis stands in the then soon-to be-completed school cafeteria at the Angus high school. Simcoe County has received funding approval from the Ministry of Education for four more schools, including a new high school in Barrie's south end. MARK WANZEL FILE PHOTO

New Onroute Service Centre - Hwy. 400/Essa Road location one of several undergoing changes

The Ministry of Transportation (MTO) has scheduled an opening date for a service centre at Highway 400 and Essa Road.

MTO spokesman Bob Nichols said a new Onroute centre and rest stop is slated to open on the northbound lanes of the highway on July 30.

The new station is being built on the same property as the former McDonald’s and Petro-Canada service site.

The former station was decommissioned in December 2011 and is one of many to undergo redevelopment.

When construction is finally completed, motorists will be able to utilize a 1,375-square-metre facility similar to other sites along Highway 401 near Trenton and Napanee.

The new service provider — Host Kilmer Service Centres — will be selecting the new restaurants for the Barrie site.

The current McDonald’s/ Petro-Canada service centre in Highway 400 southbound at Highway 89 is scheduled to close on Feb. 1 to undergo

similar redevelopments and branding to meet modern standards.

Although construction will cause short-term job losses at the Cookstown location, the development will create more than 350 construction jobs and result in economic spin-off.

The province has redeveloped 16 locations to date.

The new Onroute service centre, located near the Essa Road off-ramp along Highway 400 in Barrie, is starting to take shape. The centre, which replaces a former McDonald’s Restaurant, is expected to be open for business by July 30. MARK WANZEL PHOTO