According to the minister, cleanup will open the way for many other development initiatives.
The P.E.I. government has announced that it will clean up the old concrete fabrication yard in Borden-Carleton after years of inaction. Some Islanders, though, are sceptical of the proposal, claiming they’ve heard it all before.
Borden-Carleton Mayor Charles MacKenzie told CBC News, “I don’t believe I’d bet [on it] right now.” “This has been told to us several times.”
In Borden-Carleton, the fabrication yard is a 45-hectare waterfront facility with a 300-meter steel and concrete wharf stretching into the Northumberland Strait. However, the government-owned site is covered with large concrete slabs of various sizes and shapes, remains of the Confederation Bridge’s construction decades ago.
The government of PEI will issue a request for proposals in January to finally clean up the site, according to P.E.I.’s minister of economic development. According to Matthew MacKay, the project will undoubtedly cost millions of dollars.
In an interview, he added, “It’s a bit of an eyesore.” “Years ago, it should have been done… It’s a piece of land that has a lot of significance in the community.”
MacKay said he’s not sure why prior governments have found digging up, cracking up, and carrying away those slabs to be too difficult a chore, but he feels Dennis King’s three-year-old Progressive Conservative government is finally ready to pull this sword from the stone.
“We’re aware that there’s a lot of curiosity. There are a lot of ideas and a lot of good companies interested in moving in. ‘Now we can justify paying the price to clean it up,’ we said “MacKay stated.
Megaliths galore
A walk to the fabrication yard reveals a landscape that seems like it belongs on Easter Island, Stonehenge, or the cover of a Who record from the 1970s. From a wind-swept landscape, monochrome grey megaliths rise. Asphalt has been thrown around haphazardly. The area is fenced in. Visitors approaching from the rutted access road are stopped by a padlocked gate.
In the past, the province has solicited expressions of interest from potential developers. The King government did so again early this year but decided not to act on any of the nine responses it received for the time being.
Housing, industrial, and commercial development are all included in these plans.
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