Huronia VII -the Kawartha Marina

Workathon is the blog where I cover a number of more irregular subjects.One of these subjects is regional consulting;I have started a series called Huronia Consulting.It provides interesting ideas on towns in the southern Georgian bay area.Huronia I,II and III relate to Midland.Huronia IV and V and VI refer to Wasaga Beach.Huronia VII relates to Lindsay,Ontario.
   The Trent Severn Waterway
 I looked at several ways of increasing the regional economy in the Lindsay, Ontario.This entailed a look at several ways of increasing the population such as increasing student population and putting in a new bus terminal just slightly off the downtown core.But it was  felt that more investment would come into Lindsay if a new marina was constructed below the Lindsay lock.The idea is that boats both from Peterboro and Lake Simcoe and maybe even a few from Port Perry would come in order to have a bit of a vacation without having tremenduous expense - a day trip or a weekend trip.There is also a large build up of boats in Lake Simcoe(Barrie,Orillia,and Georgina) that presently can only travel around the lake.But the question is how much do you spend and how big should you build the marina?
 A field of Dreams
 The famous line in the movie called Field of Dreams is "build it and they will come".Using this line of thinking would mean build the ideal and biggest size that you can and the vacationers will come.The figures used in my blog called Econothon in Wordpress  were $6 to $10 million for construction and $3 to $5 million for dredging. And this would not include any dredging south of Lindsay(in the Scugog River).It was also thought that dredging must continue every two years after that for another almost $1 million every two years.                                                                This however is for the maximum size.Lindsay need not start with the maximum size until it is clear that they indeed will come.The smartest strategy would be to build a smaller  marina and see how it is received.This would involve excavating some of the land in Mcdonnell park.The first phase would be to move the river edge over to the present sidewalk and moving the river edge on the other side  back to the stone wall.This will add to the width of the river an extra 35 feet in the park and about 25 to 50 feet on the other side of the river.The distance from the start of the river wall (at the bridge)to the curve in the river (or the sidewalk) is about 225 feet.It is about 10 feet down to the riverbed on the north side and maybe 5 feet on the south side.In total this would be about 100,000 cubic feet to excavate. This is the widest part of the river now and will be another 50 feet wider after construction.This means drilling and removing the present concrete wall (on both sides) and excavating  down to the riverbed.This phase will not look at removing the Queen Street bridge although it is realized that this restricts the size of boat coming into the marina.The most likely alternative for the bridge would be to put in a steel swing bridge or lift bridge.The swing bridge would be like the one in Burlington in the Hamilton Bay harbour.
  Phase 1
 Phase 1 should cost only $1 to$2 million and require little dredging.Once again dredging every two years of the Scugog will be a part of this plan.This is the deepest part of the Scugog and the marina is only intended for small draft boats at this stage..If this is successful then we can look at phase 2 which would require reengineering the bridge and  a lot more dredging(even up to Sturgeon Lake).This strategy however( even with the lift bridge)  will  get only minimal investment on Lindsay Street north.However if the marina is full all the time this will be the signal to move to phase 2.