Council approves request to seek out grant funding for Rupert's Landing proposal

City Council is seeking grant funding to relocate the city's airport ferry
infrastructure from Fairview Bay to an area adjacent to the Kwinitsa
station on the city's waterfront

On Monday evening, City Council heard a very brief summary of what would be a fairly significant change to the Waterfront Park area.

That, as the City's Communication Manager Veronika Stewart outlined how city staff would like to put in an application towards an infrastructure program which would provide funding for a transportation project near Kwinitsa station at Rotary Waterfront Park.

City of Prince Rupert Communications
Manager Veronika Stewart spoke to
the  Rupert's Landing proposal on Monday

Ms. Stewart noted how if successful, the city would use the money towards development of the Rupert's Landing proposal, with a focus on relocating the airport ferry terminal near the Kwinitsa Station at Rotary Park. 

The project would also include a roll on, roll off ferry access to the shore as well as a breakwater asset.

The funding program would cover 90 per cent of the cost of what was estimated to be a 12.6 million dollar project, with the city required to provide 10 percent or 1.26 million dollars towards development.

Rupert's Landing was one of the many long range vision proposals that the city received from the Toronto based Planning partnership, which saw the planners come to town in the fall of 2016 to scope out the civic landscape,

After the four days of discussions in the fall of 2016 with city staffers and community participants they came up with a fairly expansive wish list for Council to explore for how they saw Prince Rupert in the future.

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In February of 2017 Mayor Lee Brain took the concept to a Rotary function  providing Rotarians with a glimpse of larger document for civic development as well as what could one day be the focus of waterfront planning  in the city.

The proposed development was most recently mentioned by Mayor Lee Brain during his Hays 2.0 presentation in April of 2018.

Council members only asked few questions about the last minute addition to the council agenda on Monday, with only Mr. Randhawa inquiring about the city's share of the financial requirements, while Acting Mayor Wade Niesh offered up his enthusiasm for the project.

"I think that would be a great project for the City of Prince Rupert to have a new revitalized waterfront at Kwinitsa. I think a lot of people have always been waiting for that and once again we hope we are successful in another grant application."

The late addition to the Agenda for Monday can be found on page 8, and provides for some background information on what the city is proposing.

As described by Ms Stewart, it is a fairly impressive concept, and as the city works towards putting forward their grant request, the project is certainly worth a bit more background for the public than a sixty second overview.

A more comprehensive discussion from City Council would offer up some more details as to what is planned as part of the initiative and what it would look like once completed.

You can review Ms. Stewart's overview from the City's Video Archive starting at the 2 minute, thirty second mark.




For more notes on the city's redevelopment plans see our archive here.

Further background on Monday's City Council session can be found from our Council Timeline, while a wider overview of council discussion points can be explored here.


Cross posted from the North Coast Review.