FORT FRANCES – The newly minted mayor of Fort Frances, Andrew Hallikas, is no stranger to municipal politics. Serving as a councillor for three terms and now sitting in the big chair for his fourth, he’s read the town’s agenda and knows what priorities he needs to cross off.
“It starts with the previous council, who also accomplished a lot, but started a number of initiatives that didn’t get finished. So, the first task of this council is to finish those things up,” said Hallikas.
For example, Hallikas acknowledge that the population of Fort Frances is aging. The council will be looking at expanding the Fort Frances Senior Centre with new programming and accommodation to the facility.
On the other side of the spectrum, youth recreation has been on the books for quite some time and with the $10,000 donation from Tbaytel for the installation of a spray park at Legion Park on Lillie Avenue, as well as the continued renovations to the expansion of Fort Frances Sportsplex.
“This is a big hockey town, but we also have squash courts, raquette ball courts, a weight room, and a really great pool there. We are looking into not only refurbishing it, but adding on or perhaps getting a new pool. That is something the entire community uses,” said Hallikas.
Although recreational well-being is extremely important to Hallikas, the number one priority on his mind is creating a stronger economy.
With the shutdown of the mill, the largest economic industries in Fort Frances are oriented strand board mill and the Rainy River open pit gold mine, and the mine has a limited life span.
“We need to be proactive. We need to be doing things to attract business and industry to our community, and I think we can it do because we are blessed in our location here,” said Hallikas.
One of the development projects slated to go ahead is the Shevlin Wood Yard Project, a variety of development projects on a piece of land the municipality got from the previous owners of the mill.
“What we want to do is develop that with a variety of housing, recreation, green space, and restaurants,” explained Hallikas.
Hallikas also reflected on the Gateway Project, which will redevelop the western areas of the town to highlight the International Bridge. According to Hallikas, half a million people a year travel across the bridge from the United States.
“What we would like to do is get some of those people to stay in town. We are going to spruce it up so traffic can flow into our downtown and provide them with easy parking, so they can stay and have a meal and do some shopping,” said Hallikas.
The development projects go hand-in-hand with the deconstruction of the mill. Hallikas states that the same company that is currently demolishing the mill is working on redeveloping the mill site.
“That's prime real estate right on the river. As the Mill goes down, we are getting a million-dollar view down our main street, right down Scotts Street. Before you couldn’t even see the river and now you can. That’s some prime real estate for businesses and industries to move into,” said Hallikas.
Additionally, the waterfront will also see a change with the redevelopment of the mill site.
“One of the most popular spaces in our community is our riverfront water walk and bike path, and that ends right now at our hospital because that’s where the mill property started and we couldn’t expand. Now we have an opportunity to expand our waterfront walkway along the mill property to the bridge and hopefully in the future on the other side of the bridge to the west end park where our water park is going to go,” explains Hallikas.
