Where should we build it? Looking back on 5 location decisions that changed Sudbury

1. Main branch library

In 1949, a referendum was held that actually had Sudburiansdecide where to build a new main branch of the public library.

According to the Sudbury Star, it was to settle a "10-year argument" between the library board that favoured a site on Larch Street and city council, which wanted it built on Mackenzie Street. Mackenzie won the day, 3,441 votes to 2,387.

The library opened in 1952 and the city is now once again talking about building a new one downtown, pairing it with an art gallery.

Another referendum question in 1949 asked citizens if they wanted to build a new arena on Elgin Street, on the site of the old Central Public School. It barely passed, with only 54 per cent of the vote. Sudbury Community Arena opened in 1951.

2. Laurentian University

It opened in 1960, but didn't have a dedicated campus until 1964.

A 1961 study looked at possible sites and where there was some public support to build it in downtown Sudbury, it argued that "Sudbury's traffic problems, housing situation and other factors...make the downtown location for a university inadvisable."

The study did like four other sites, including the site between Ramsey Lake and Lake Nephawin where the campus is today.

But the three runners up were: a rocky hill off Highway 17 which today is the Silver Hills big box retail development, bushland near Moonlight Beach which is now home to Camp Sudacaand parts of the Lake Laurentian Conservation Area and a plot of land north ofMaley Drive where Cambrian College was built a few years later.

3. The Energy Court site

These parking lots and empty lots, which today we call Energy Court, have been where several development dreams have gone to die.

In the early1970s, it was an alternative site for a new downtown mall that was instead build on the site of a demolished neighbourhood called the Borgia District and is today known as the Rainbow Centre.

In the early 1990s, Mayor Jim Gordon pushed for the new College Boreal to be built there.

"And I think you'd have a much different downtown today than you have presently," he says. The college was instead built off Lasalle Boulevard, on a site, that at one point was earmarked for a new hospital.

4. Paris Park

When the downtown Canadian Tire was set to close in the early 1990s, there was a pitch to develop the lot into something called Paris Park, a multi-storey complex including offices, condominiums and a new home for the main branch of the public library.

But after initially supporting the idea, city council got cold feet about the costs involved and instead spent about $5 million to build a transit terminal and then selling the remaining land for the LCBO and Tim Hortons.

Architect Dennis Castellan still sees it as a big mistake."I can see that building every day in my head. I see the first floor, second floor, third floor. I can see people looking out windows," he says.

5. Legacy Projects

In 2007, Mayor John Rodriguez envisioned two major projects changing the face of Greater Sudbury: a $60 million multi-use recreation complex including four ice pads to be built at the corner of LasalleBoulevard and Frood Roadand a$50 million performing arts centre to be built over parking lots downtown between Shaughnessy and Minto Streets.

They were bundled together with the Maley Drive Extension and some assorted road projects into a $205 million package that council turned down by a razor close 7-6. And today, the site for the performing arts centre is now where city staff suggest a new event centre be built.