Station Mall merchants, Hounds howl over bus terminal move

Local business leaders incredulous they've been denied permission to speak at Monday's City Council meeting

20200526-GFL Memorial Gardens summer stock-DT-04

Tim Lukenda, president and governor of Soo Greyhounds, is pushing for a new transit terminal to be built on the site of existing terminal building, one block from GFL Memorial Gardens. File photo by Darren Taylor/SooToday

Mayor Provenzano and City Council are facing strong opposition from local businesses in regards to moving the main downtown bus terminal five blocks west to Sault Transit's bus barn/administration complex at Queen and Huron.

Councillors will be asked Monday to issue requests for proposals for both construction drawings and tendering for the $2 million project, but leading business figures are incredulous they've been denied permission to speak at the virtual meeting.

Instead, they've been scrambling to get packages of written submissions to council members.

One document in those packages is a letter from the struggling merchants of Station Mall.

"The Station Mall Merchants Association opposes the relocation away from the downtown area, and supports the terminal remaining in place," the letter states.

"We believe it is important for the terminal to be downtown and moving it would not only cause issue for our retailers and staff members, but also to the public in general."

"Station Mall houses over 60 locally and nationally owned businesses, with too many staff members to count. Many of our staff rely on the bus terminal being there as many of them take public transit to get to work, and most of them would require a second bus to get to the Station Mall directly."

"We believe moving the bus terminal will have a direct impact on our staff’s ability to get to work easily and on time."

"In many cities, particularly smaller cities, buses will continue to perform a critical role in supporting the economic and social life of the city. We understand that moving the terminal is designed to improve the convenience of bus operations and vehicle movement, however at the detriment of ridership."

"This move will also impact the public negatively in our opinion, as the current location is right in the centre of our downtown area, and it provides citizens a convenient source of transportation to not only Station Mall, but also the Queenstown merchants and the GFL Memorial Gardens."

Another letter is from Tim Lukenda, president and governor of Soo Greyhounds.

"We appreciate that there are a multitude of considerations that have gone into the proposed recommendation to relocate the bus terminal from its current location on Dennis street to the existing facility on Huron Street," Lukenda says.

"Nevertheless, from the perspective of the Soo Greyhounds, we believe that the existing location on Dennis Street provides greater access and convenience for both current and future attendees of Soo Greyhound games and other entertainment at the GFL Memorial Gardens."

"We believe that it is critical to foster a strong downtown core to attract patrons of our games to visit nearby restaurants, bars and other retail establishments. Convenient, low-cost transportation to the downtown area is a critical component of this strategy."

"We fully recognize that the existing bus terminal has reached the end of its useful life but feel that an investment in a new and improved bus terminal in the Dennis Street location would serve the citizens of Sault Ste. Marie well," Lukenda's letter states.

Also pushing City Council to reconsider the proposed relocation are businessman/lawyer Joe Bisceglia and dentist Michael Nanne.

A scientific poll by SooToday/Village Media, conducted on April 11, 2021, found overwhelming support for that idea: 656 votes, compared to just 124 votes favouring a transfer up the street to 111 Huron.

A total of 1,180 confirmed local votes were cast in the poll, which had a 2.81 per cent margin of error, 19 times out of 20.

SooToday's polling system allows for capture of relevant local data and gives us the ability to detect and prevent fraudulent votes, as well as detect and prevent robots and filter out non-local duplicate votes.

Members of the city's agenda-setting committee have advised the business leaders that they've already had ample opportunity to speak out at recent environmental assessment hearings.

Monday's City Council meeting will be livestreamed on SooToday starting at 4:30 p.m.