Official Sydney and Area Projects Thread

[CJSA]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

If you are trying to upload images, you will have to use an online photo hosting service/ Image Shack seems popular. I use Flickr, but it is not so user friendly.

Thank you MonctonRad ! I will try that!

[EnvisionSaintJohn]

• Video Link

[EnvisionSaintJohn]

Should this thread be renamed "The Official CBRM Projects Thread" or "The Official Cape Breton Projects Thread"?

[StatelyElms]

Cape Breton University has completed its Cape Breton Regional Municipality Light Rail Transit Feasibility Report (say that five times fast) and found it to be feasible and recommended.

They suggest a five-station design on Phase One, which consists almost exclusively of disused right of way from Sydney River to CBU Campus, served by battery-electric Alstom Adessia, with a projected cost of $142,905,625.

Suggested service frequencies of 20 minutes between 7:00 AM and 11:00 PM. They also suggest restructuring municipal bus routes to feed into the line to allow its use as a transit artery, with the downtown terminal acting as a central transit hub.

You can find the report at the link below:

https://www.cbu.ca/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/CBRM-Rail-Transit-Feasibility-NOV2025.pdf

[Ozabald]

Originally Posted by StatelyElms

Cape Breton University has completed its Cape Breton Regional Municipality Light Rail Transit Feasibility Report (say that five times fast) and found it to be feasible and recommended.

They suggest a five-station design on Phase One, which consists almost exclusively of disused right of way from Sydney River to CBU Campus, served by battery-electric Alstom Adessia, with a projected cost of $142,905,625.

Suggested service frequencies of 20 minutes between 7:00 AM and 11:00 PM. They also suggest restructuring municipal bus routes to feed into the line to allow its use as a transit artery, with the downtown terminal acting as a central transit hub.

You can find the report at the link below:

https://www.cbu.ca/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/CBRM-Rail-Transit-Feasibility-NOV2025.pdf

No wonder CBU is a joke of a university to come out with a report such as this. A LRT for an economically stagnant municipality of barely 100K people. Cape Breton's version of the Springfield Monorail. I guess it's more of Dave Dingwall's entitlement to his entitlements.

[Taeolas]

Sounds like the city has a lot of the infrastructure (ie rail lines) already in place and available. The price seems quite cheap considering, even if you figure actual costs will probably double or even come out to ~500M.

It does seem to be a bit of a white elephant. But at the same time, before the car society started dominating, trams and similar rail transit was common in a lot smaller communities. If Sydney decides they want to experiment and see if smaller communities can run rail transit on the cheap, I say go for it. I'm sure they're eyeing KW's ION system and hoping they can catch similar lightning (Even if KW is 5x+ their size and much more influential in general).

[MonctonRad]

Well, an LRT in CBRM might actually embarrass HRM to do something similar.

[bingun]

I know the submarines have been talked about a lot in the PSJ thread, but I haven't been in the loop on this maintenance base for the Arctic vessels. Was it unexpected that Sydney was selected, or has this always been a good possibility? It sounds like good news for the Maritimes, regardless, seeing this in NS rather than Quebec.

Coast guard selects Sydney harbour for icebreaker maintenance facility

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scot...ney-for-icebreaker-maintenance-9.7043609

[Smevo]

Seems unexpected to me, though it makes a lot of sense with the deepwater port and the Coast Guard College beside the port. Mind you, it might only be unexpected to me because I still remember when they moved the icebreakers out of Sydney to station them in Halifax.

[Smevo]

We were home over the holidays, and I tried to go past most of the develolpments that I knew were underway or previously announced. No pictures at the moment, and I didn't get the chance to take many even if I get the chance to post some, but I can try to get some screenshots from the dashcam if things slow down in the next couple of weeks.

Here's a summary of what we saw and heard:

Glace Bay
- New Dawn youth center under construction
- new apartment building behind an existing continuing care facility on Sterling Rd (at least 4 storeys, looked like it could be up to 6 as some floors might have been hidden by the surroundings).

Membertou
- 2-3 new commercial buildings (stripmall style) under construction at Seventh Exchange
- 5 storey mass timber professional building near completion, also at Seventh Exchange

New Waterford
- heard that there was a lot of construction around the BEC complex, but didn't get to check it out. If memory serves, it would be the new health care facility and possibly some apartment buildings.

North Sydney-Sydney Mines
- didn't get a chance to drive by, but the new health care facility (5 storeys) looked near completion, if not already complete, based on what is visible from the Sydney side of the harbour

CBU Campus
- Medical school complete and open, complete with new public medical clinic
- Nancy Dingwall student health center expansion complete
- Canada Games Complex renovations complete
- new science building under construction in the old SUB parking lot, complete with tower crane on site (last rendering I saw had it at 3 storeys). Couldn't get a good enough look to tell if it was footings or piles and grade beams for the foundation, but there were a lot of either footings or grade beams completed when we drove past. No significant excavation depth, so my assumption would be piles and grade beams.
- more on-campus development rumored in the early stages of planning, but nothing I can share here at the moment.

Sydney
- Structural construction of the Regional Hospital expansion complete, interior and envelope construction underway (8 storeys)
- NSCC complete and open (I think this actually opened just before our October 2024 trip home)
- Central Library confirmed to be moving back to the waterfront as part of the Edgewater development. Since this was already planned as a phased development, it hopefully won't run into the same issues that Chernin's development had (the council at the time wouldn't approve that one being built in phases instead of all at once, which was a horrible decision)
- Edgewater delays partially due to redesign to incorporate the new central library on the waterfront - construction of first phase with the library expected to start this year (multi-phase hotel, commercial, residential, library, and underground parking - 8 storeys from street level, 10 storeys from boardwalk).
- CBU has started site services for Phase 1 of their Tartan Downs development (multi-phase residential with mix of townhomes and apartment buildings of 3-4 storeys).
- new commercial building construction in Harbourside (didn't see it in person, but saw it posted on social media), business unknown, warehouse style with tilt-up panels for exterior.
- early discussions underway for new replacement buildings for Sydney Academy and Riverview High School (Coxheath).
- in camera council discussions on a new port development that council couldn't publicly talk about at the time I saw the story posted. This may or may not be the Coast Guard maintenance facility that has since been announced.

No visible progress nor new information
- Dodd Street Apartments (old train station property - 2 buildings at 4 to 5 storeys each)
- Welton Street Apartments (former baseball diamonds beside Sydney Memorial Chapel - multiple buildings at 4 to 6 storeys each)
- Center 200 expansion

[CJSA]

New 3 story office building under construction at the corner of George street and Townsend street Sydney.
New credit union building to replace existing one.

[CJSA]

New PUR and Simple restaurant opening this March in Sydney. It will be located in the same building on Welton street as Starbucks. This Starbucks is in the top 10 sales in Canada so it will be in a high traffic location.

[CJSA]

Just noticed on the Journal Of Commerce website in the pre bid section a tender to construct a 35 Million dollar retail store in Sydney. It notes that the project is to start in September 2026. Not sure what this might be?

[MonctonRad]

Originally Posted by CJSA

Just noticed on the Journal Of Commerce website in the pre bid section a tender to construct a 35 Million dollar retail store in Sydney. It notes that the project is to start in September 2026. Not sure what this might be?

$35M for a retail store? That's hard to believe. Maybe for an entire retail plaza, but not a single store........

[CJSA]

Good day Moncton Rad;
I am not a subscriber to that Journal. The information is vague. My guess some sort of retail development at Membertou.

[Smevo]

Originally Posted by CJSA

New 3 story office building under construction at the corner of George street and Townsend street Sydney.
New credit union building to replace existing one.

I forgot about this one, even though I drove by it several times when I was home. A lot of the foundation work was done at the time. Looked like piles and grade-beams (which is very common downtown with the soil conditions). I didn't have any information on what was going there, and can't remember if I had asked any of my contacts about it. Sounds like it will be a nice addition to the area.

@CJSA - Any idea what the plan for the old building is? Is it being torn down for the new parking lot, or incorporated into the new building somehow?

Originally Posted by CJSA

Good day Moncton Rad;
I am not a subscriber to that Journal. The information is vague. My guess some sort of retail development at Membertou.

Membertou seems most likely, though it looked like there was a renewed push to pre-lease for new Grand Lake Crossing buildings. I find that real-estate firm's website that runs Grand Lake Crossing and Mayflower Mall sometimes difficult to get information from, and I'm not at the point of curiosity to contact them directly yet.

[CJSA]

The CEO of the Sydney credit Union was interviewed on local radio and indicated that the existing building might be repurposed into affordable housing. Another possibility being discussed was a new 8 to 10 story apartment building on the site. He indicated more information will be forthcoming in the fall of '26.

[Smevo]

Thanks for that.

I'm all for either one. Due to the location, I'd lean towards affordable housing (near outreach/employment agencies), but I wouldn't be heartbroken to see more density/height added there either.

[CJSA]

New Starbucks under construction in Membertou-Sydney.

[Smevo]

In the newest edition of the "on-again off-again" Costco rumours, Move 100.1 in Halifax has reported that an employee in the Halifax area reported to them that a new Costco would be opening in Cape Breton in 2030. No official confirmation yet, however.