City of Greater Sudbury looking into private sector investments for The Junction

The City of Greater Sudbury is looking to maximize the potential positive impacts of The Junction for the city's downtown.

A motion brought forward by Councillor Deb McIntosh and Councillor Fern Cormier at Tuesday'scouncil meeting, asked the city to look into private sector investment. McIntoshsays this could also help the city with cost sharing.

"There's been a quite a bit of concern over the cost of a new library, art gallery and this would help,if we could investigate the possibilities, this could eleviate those concerns," she said.

McIntosh says she hopes to see a multi-use building, that includes the library/art gallery and performance/convention centre, as well as other commercial aspects.

"All this motion is asking is for staff to explore the opportunity, to look at a multi-use building for the library, art gallery to include some commercial aspects, a coffee shop, possibly a pub and residential as part of the development," said McIntosh.

Cormier says these ideas are still very much in the early stages.

"We just wanted to be prepared and basically direct staff to keep that option open... and hopefully send the message that the potential exists for some public private partnership exploration on this," he said.

He says The Junction project is still tied into several other dominos that still have yet to fall into place, but he hopes that this will help them be prepared for the future of this project.

The motion was carried at the Jan. 15 city council meeting.