Competing visons

NRU
June 27, 2018
Rachael Williams

The City of Hamilton and the Hamilton Port Authority are both in pursuit of the same east-end bayfront lands for future development opportunities.

Strategically located in the heart of Hamilton’s industrial district, parts of the 813-acre brownfield site are coveted by both the city and port authority. Formerly used by Stelco for steel production, the lands are part of the city’s vision to create an employment hub that could accommodate light industrial uses, creative industries and greenspace.

“We want pristine, industrial and commercial uses to maximize our employment lands with actual jobs,” said Ward 4 councillor Sam Merulla.

The port authority, a federally mandated corporation, wants to capitalize on the existing heavy industry and transportation networks in the area and create a world-class multimodal industrial hub. While the port authority owns 630 acres of industrial land, the organization is running out of developable land, with only about 30 acres remaining.
The port authority is interested in purchasing close to 150 acres close to the bayfront and an additional 100 acres near the rail lines that run through the property.

“We think there’s a great opportunity there with the transportation assets on that property to continue to grow,” said Hamilton Port Authority president and CEO Ian Hamilton.

Transportation assets include marine, rail and road connections, located close to the United States border and 25 minutes away from the John C. Munro Hamilton International Airport.

The city and the port authority have been quietly discussing the future use of the site since Stelco was placed in court-supervised creditor protection three years ago. While under creditor protection, lands formerly owned by Stelco were converted into a land trust created and controlled by the province. The land trust leased a portion of the site back to Stelco and agreed to fund any remediation required before it could be sold to a third party.

But earlier this month, Stelco, under the ownership of American venture capital firm Bedrock Industries, bought back most of the land in Hamilton as well as 2,300 acres in Nanticoke for approximately $114-million.

“It is truly regrettable that despite repeated assurances of a willingness to consult—the future of Hamilton’s waterfront has been decided by Queen’s Park,” said Hamilton mayor Fred Eisenberger.
It is unclear what Stelco intends to do with the land. The company did not respond to multiple interview requests from NRU.
In a press released, a company spokesperson writes, “the acquisition provides Stelco with significantly greater flexibility and allows Stelco the ability to grow its core business.”

Hamilton’s planning and economic development general manager Jason Thorne told NRU the city is in the process of assessing the lands to see if there are parcels that would be of strategic value and after that process is complete, find out if there is any interest on behalf of the property owners to sell.

“The bottom line is we’re trying to minimize the negative impact because we want to control the destiny of those lands,” said Merulla.

At the June 20 general issues committee meeting, Hamilton said he does not foresee Stelco using the entire property for operations expansion and will negotiate with Bedrock Industries for land that would be of strategic interest to the port authority.
“We will work directly with Bedrock because they still have theoretically about 300 to 350 acres of surplus lands,” he said.

Historically, the port authority and the City of Hamilton have been at odds when it comes to development of the port lands. The port authority is not subject to local planning processes and does not have to go through the same public consultations or application submissions.

“If you look at the Stelco situation alone...we’re both competing for our own corporate visions to be part of that development,” said Ward 5 councillor Chad Collins.
Hamilton said it would be a “missed opportunity” if the two corporations don’t find a way to align their visions for the bayfront property.