Land on Yates Ave. is selling faster than green grass through a goose

There isn’t a lot of industrial land left in Sault Ste. Marie, and what remains is being snapped up fast.

City councillors agreed tonight to sell one 13.1-acre property on Yates Avenue to PUC for $1.1 million for a distribution station needed to power Algoma Steel’s still-under-construction electric arc furnaces.

In a second approved transaction, Ann Arbor, Michigan-based Great Lakes Fishery Commission will buy a 6.7-acre parcel of city-owned industrial land on Yates for $334,500.

Then, councillors voted to initiate an environmental assessment on a proposed road extension intended to open up more industrial land on Wood Park Court, two kilometres west of Yates Avenue.

Since James Caicco at Century 21 Choice Realty Inc. was retained one year ago to market the city’s industrial property, other sales or pending/ conditional sales have been made to Steel Speed, Vector Freight Systems and Trimount Construction Group.

On Yates Avenue, 31 acres of industrial land have been sold or conditionally sold, leaving just 13 acres remaining there.

“There’s a real benefit marketing this outside our city, through the methods of real estate,” Caicco tells SooToday.

“But also, you have to get the Economic Development Corp. and the city credit. We work as a team on this.”

Caicco particularly credits Rick Van Staveren, the city’s director of economic development.

“I really credit him because when he took over his role, he saw that this land had been sitting there since they developed it, and he thought it’s got to be marketed.”

“And since then, we’ve had great luck with it. What the EDC was offering for it before we listed it was under the price now, and they they still couldn’t get activity.”

“It seems we’re getting a healthy mix. About 50 per cent of our interest is local and 50 per cent of its from out of town,” Caicco said.

Near the Arauco wood products plant on Base Line, Wood Park Court is said to have 53 acres of developable land but about one-third of those properties near the waterfront have restrictions related to zoning, wetlands and water-related issues.