Sept 12, 2017

The Lake Simcoe Jackson’s Point Harbourfront Redevelopment Plan ‘Emerging Options’ was assembled for a Public Open House (drop-in format) that took place on August 30 at the Ramada Hotel in Jackson’s Point.

Option 2B was put forward as the preferred plan on August 30 and featured a realignment of property boundaries, elimination of the boat launch and 265 m of public water’s edge at the lake and in the channel.

To accomplish this, Bonnie Park shifts north to include channel footage and maintains current lake frontage. There will be an expanded green component if no boat launch is offered and there will be a reduced amount of public parking within Bonnie Park. Other areas will be used for public parking and the redevelopment plan will include public gathering areas, naturalized areas, an observation area and an opportunity for pavilions or what they call pop-up retail.

The plan also proposes a new building incorporating washrooms for the public and boaters, a marina office and potential retail. The Lorne Park Trail connection will be maintained and they are proposing expanded town boat slips in the harbor although this requires a partnership due to the water lot ownership rights.

The Malone Wharf area on the northwest will maintain dive access, have naturalized areas of vegetation and potentially seasonal bridges linking breakwaters. They are also recommending an observation area and a platform along the edge of the wharf for fishing which is very popular now.

The real money comes in with low density residential being proposed for the Malone Road area and the developer who purchased the Bonnie Boats property is negotiating the release of some of that property in exchange for other development opportunities.

The process is ongoing until September 19 when the recommendations will be made to Town Council.

From a boaters perspective, it sounds as though some of the boat slips will be maintained but the pump out and fuel dock facilities are in question.

Readers of Boating Industry Canada News Week will be interested to see the projections for fuel sales that the planners put forward.

Depending on the volume of fuel sold, the planners indicate that the industry norm gives a 15 to 20% margin for fuel sales and the example of $100,000 in gas dock revenues being approximately $85,000 in fuel costs. With annual revenues in excess of $150,000, the profit margin increases but they identified two major challenges.

First, 30 of the existing slips are held by sailboat users and they suggest that these only use a small amount of fuel. Second, with only 80 or 81 slips even in an expanded Marina, the profit margin would be at the lower end of the scale. Based on an 80 slip marina with 30 slips occupied by sailboats and 10 slips set aside for transient boaters, a 10 year projection of sales and profits was put forward including both the cost of the fuel sold, as well as the labor to sell it.

This projection suggested a net profit over the first 10 years of $76,960 but also noted that the investment to set up a fuel pump and dock is estimated at $245,000 and has a life cycle of approximately 20 years. Therefore, while the fuel dock would provide an annual net profit it would not cover the replacement cost by the end of the 20 year cycle.

Does that math sound familiar?

Stay tuned to see where this goes but I suspect that Lake Simcoe boaters will lose the fuel dock opportunity in this redevelopment.