Calling themselves the Sudbury Committee for Sustainable Planning and Development, a new group took to its feet Sunday to show the city a pledge to make Greater Sudbury more walkable hasn't been forgotten.
The committee and local community members marched from the Costco parking lot on The Kingsway to the site of the "Kingsway Entertaiment District," as the sign now standing at the intersection with Levesque Street east of downtown proclaims.
They covered a stretch of 3.9 km while braving Sudbury's frigid temperatures to demonstrate the complex of event centre, hotel and casino to be built on the site by a group led, on its face, by developer and Sudbury Wolves owner Dario Zulich, is being built in an area that is not, in any way, walkable.
Information posted to the event page by the committee argues the True North Strong site stands in stark contrast to the city’s promise of building a community that's accessible on foot, and are urging officials to consider a new site, downtown being the only other tangible option for an event centre complex.
This year, and with both fanfare and contention, council approved an ambitious plan to transform a vacant 20-hectare property (owned jointly by Zulich and Toronto lawyer and former Sudburian Perry Delellce) more than five kilometres from downtown as the site for a multi-million dollar sports and entertainment complex, sold partly on the promise the finished product would be a new tourist destination in northeastern Ontario.
Sudbury.com will have more on this story.
