The Official Saint John, NB Project Thread

[Helladog]

Originally Posted by kwajo

I was kind of figuring that this new plant would be the final nail in the coffin for Bayside, but that's purely speculation on my part.

Are you thinking Courtney Bay? That plant has been closed for awhile. Recently, one of the steam turbines in the building was refurbished for use with the gas turbine cogen at Bayside Power. Except for when natural gas is expensive, it'll likely not go anywhere.

[random11]

An article that was published in the Toronto Sun:

Happiness is about living in a town where everybody knows your name.
It’s a place where neighbours return lost wallets and where you would hand over your house keys without flinching to the people living beside you when away on vacation.
It’s where life satisfaction is high and residents feel connected to their community.
In Canada, that place is Saint John, N.B.
We end Sun Media’s five-day series examining the country’s most beautiful, smartest, most caring and quirkiest cities with the happiest place in Canada, as it’s this elusive pursuit of happiness that trumps the value of the divinely beautiful or a stratospheric IQ.
According to a 2007 study conducted by the University of British Columbia, residents in Saint John reported a life satisfaction rate of 8.6 out of 10, making it among the happiest cities not only in Canada, but in the world.
Globally, Denmark, the happiest country, reports a life satisfaction rate of about 8.2. Canada’s score is 7.6.
More than wealth and income, community engagement and trust in neighbours are what increase a person’s chances of happiness — a surprise to no one but economists, said study co-author Christopher Barrington-Leigh.
“We’re social animals. People have evolved to be driven by those around us,” he said. “If you have a social economy where people are well-
connected that means you’re happier and better adjusted.”
The wallet-test — where residents express confidence a lost wallet would be returned — is a good barometer for measuring neighbourly relations and shouldn’t be under-estimated.
“It’s a telling measure and has a high correlation with life satisfaction,” he said.
Meanwhile, in a study of incivility in the metropolitan landscape, Statistics Canada found that residents in Vancouver, Halifax and Montreal reported the most instances of social incivility — noisy drunkards, drug use and homelessness — in their neighbourhood.
The happiness study, sponsored by the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research, also found truth to support the old adage, “Money can’t buy you happiness,” as bigger, richer cities were found to be less satisfied than smaller communities with smaller incomes.
Maritime cities such as Charlottetown, Moncton, N.B., Halifax, and St. John’s, Nfld., for instance, also made the top 10 list of happy cities, while the country’s major urban centres — Toronto, Montreal, Calgary, Vancouver — are conspicuously absent.
“It’s harder to be engaged in bigger cities where there are transient populations and many don’t know their neighbours,” Barrington-Leigh said.
A 2005 Statistics Canada study also found that between 52% to 61% of rural residents reported that they knew their neighbours, three times the proportion of urbanites in Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver and Ottawa who could say the same.
The pursuit to measure happiness began in the 1970s, when countries were undergoing huge growth in their GDPs. People were getting richer, but not happier.
“It seemed at odds with economic theories. So people started trying to figure out why,” said Barrington-Leigh.
In his book Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community, Harvard University professor Robert Putnam says our shrinking involvement with church, social clubs, political parties and even bowling leagues — all considered forms of “social capital” — is making us increasingly disconnected with friends, family and neighbours and poses a “serious threat to our civic and personal health.”
According to Putnam’s research, people are even bowling alone. While more Americans are bowling than ever before, they’re not bowling in leagues, he writes.
There is strength in numbers, he says, as getting married is the equivalent of quadrupling your income, while attending a club meeting regularly is the equivalent of doubling your income. Participating in a social club also cuts by half a person’s odds of dying the next year, he says.
But suburban life, work, TV, computers, family structure and shifting female roles have eroded socialization.
According to a 2006 Statistics Canada report, heavy Internet users — defined as spending more than one hour online a day — devoted less time to socializing with their family and friends. Heavy users were alone two hours more than non-users, and tended to stay at home, showing less interest in outdoor activities.
Understanding what makes people happy is a key building block in city planning, adds Barrington-Leigh, and could prove useful for 
policymakers.
“We’d have more insight into which policies make for better lives,” he said.
Like the song goes, it seems, “The more we get together, the happier we’ll be.”
Life Lessons
According to Robert Putnam, author of Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community, residents living in communities with fewer church, PTA, recreation or political groups have lower educational performance, more teen pregnancy, child suicide, low birth weight, and prenatal mortality.
Social capital is also a strong predictor of crime rates and other measures of neighbourhood quality of life, as it is of our health: In quantitative terms, if you smoke and don’t belong to groups, it’s a close call as to which is the riskier behaviour.
Happiest cities
1. Saint John, N.B.
2. Quebec City, Que.
3. Charlottetown, P.E.I.
4. Moncton, N.B., Kitchener, Ont. (tied, no fifth)
6. St. John's, Nfld.
7. Saskatoon, Sask.
8. Regina, Sask.
9. Winnipeg, Man.
10. Halifax, N.S.

[PersonPlaceorThing]

Originally Posted by PersonPlaceorThing

I noticed yesturday while driving through the rifle range that the Portland United Church's new housing complex is well underway. I'll go take a picture this evening.

[davehook_729]

http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2009/03/26/tech-090326-google-street-view.html

People strolling past homes, stores and even strip joints across Canada will soon be captured and frozen in time by Google's camera, to appear in high-resolution street-level images on the internet.

Google will be driving around 11 Canadian cities across the country again "in coming weeks" to take images for the Canadian version of its Street View service, which it hopes to launch "very soon," the company announced earlier this week.

Cities where Google will be filming:

* Calgary.
* Edmonton.
* Halifax.
* Montreal.
* Ottawa.
* Quebec City.
* Saint John.
* Saskatoon.
* Toronto.
* Vancouver.
* Winnipeg.

(article continues on...)

[Wrightguy0]

coming weeks probably means when everything has had a chance to bloom and the weather has warmed up

[kwajo]

Originally Posted by Wrightguy0

coming weeks probably means when everything has had a chance to bloom and the weather has warmed up

Hopefully they follow common form and leave Saint John til the end, that way we have the best chance of having some greenery out and some trash cleaned up.

[magee_b]

wonder if they will update with a better satellite image of uptown too.

[random11]

Telegraph-Journal (New Brunswick)
03/27/2009
DAVE MacLEAN
Pg. B1
As he prepares to host his bank's investors, employees and senior management in Saint John next week, TD Bank Financial Group deputy chairman Frank McKenna says the bank will continue its steady growth in New Brunswick in the coming years.

Hundreds of visitors from across Canada and the United States are expected to be in the Port City for the bank's annual general meeting Thursday at the Saint John Trade and Convention Centre.

McKenna noted the company has been growing in the province and he said there's more to come.
"One thing that may surprise people is the very strong employee base we have there," said McKenna, who served as premier from 1987 to 1997. "In New Brunswick overall, we've got 535 employees and the majority of them are in Saint John. Our insurance headquarters for the region are in Saint John and we have 260 people working (at TD Meloche Monnex) now and that's scheduled to go up to 400.

"We'll be hiring another 150 people, approximately, in Saint John in the coming years.
"We have a big employee base there, a big customer base there and as a result of that dramatic growth we just opened a new Waterhouse centre in Saint John this year and we're going to be opening a new branch in Saint John in the coming year."

McKenna noted that TD Bank has been moving its annual general meeting around the country since 1998 and he made a pitch to bring it to his home province.

He said Saint John's burgeoning economy and the southeast region's development into an energy hub helped attract the bank's decision-makers.

"I felt like I had a really strong argument as to why it was New Brunswick's turn," he said. "When we looked at the options, Saint John became a very natural and logical place to go and there are a lot of good reasons.

"Saint John is attracting a lot of national attention, it's a city that is enjoying dynamic growth, it has a huge level of optimism - in many ways it's almost an exception in North America to the general rule in these dire economic circumstances. I know things aren't perfect, but relatively speaking Saint John is a good news story."

McKenna said the meeting will generate huge economic spinoffs for the city.
"This is going to be a very proud occasion for me," McKenna said of the business gathering that is expected to generate more than $1 million for the local economy. "This is the first time the TD Bank, in its more than 100-year history, has had its AGM (annual general meeting) in New Brunswick. It's a really big thing. The impact is enormous.

"The biggest impact of all is the national attention that Saint John will get. This really will give the city a lot of national profile. These annual meetings attract of a lot of attention. People fly in from all over North America to cover them."

McKenna also promised to unveil a special initiative while he's in the city next week.
"We've been looking at a very special project in Saint John that ... I'm going to be announcing next week," he said. "I can't give you any more details, but it's a very nice project for Saint John and I think people will be very proud of it."

[Helladog]

Originally Posted by random11

Telegraph-Journal (New Brunswick)
03/27/2009
DAVE MacLEAN
Pg. B1
As he prepares to host his bank's investors, employees and senior management in Saint John next week, TD Bank Financial Group deputy chairman Frank McKenna says the bank will continue its steady growth in New Brunswick in the coming years.

Hundreds of visitors from across Canada and the United States are expected to be in the Port City for the bank's annual general meeting Thursday at the Saint John Trade and Convention Centre.

McKenna noted the company has been growing in the province and he said there's more to come.
"One thing that may surprise people is the very strong employee base we have there," said McKenna, who served as premier from 1987 to 1997. "In New Brunswick overall, we've got 535 employees and the majority of them are in Saint John. Our insurance headquarters for the region are in Saint John and we have 260 people working (at TD Meloche Monnex) now and that's scheduled to go up to 400.

"We'll be hiring another 150 people, approximately, in Saint John in the coming years.
"We have a big employee base there, a big customer base there and as a result of that dramatic growth we just opened a new Waterhouse centre in Saint John this year and we're going to be opening a new branch in Saint John in the coming year."

McKenna noted that TD Bank has been moving its annual general meeting around the country since 1998 and he made a pitch to bring it to his home province.

He said Saint John's burgeoning economy and the southeast region's development into an energy hub helped attract the bank's decision-makers.

"I felt like I had a really strong argument as to why it was New Brunswick's turn," he said. "When we looked at the options, Saint John became a very natural and logical place to go and there are a lot of good reasons.

"Saint John is attracting a lot of national attention, it's a city that is enjoying dynamic growth, it has a huge level of optimism - in many ways it's almost an exception in North America to the general rule in these dire economic circumstances. I know things aren't perfect, but relatively speaking Saint John is a good news story."

McKenna said the meeting will generate huge economic spinoffs for the city.
"This is going to be a very proud occasion for me," McKenna said of the business gathering that is expected to generate more than $1 million for the local economy. "This is the first time the TD Bank, in its more than 100-year history, has had its AGM (annual general meeting) in New Brunswick. It's a really big thing. The impact is enormous.

"The biggest impact of all is the national attention that Saint John will get. This really will give the city a lot of national profile. These annual meetings attract of a lot of attention. People fly in from all over North America to cover them."

McKenna also promised to unveil a special initiative while he's in the city next week.
"We've been looking at a very special project in Saint John that ... I'm going to be announcing next week," he said. "I can't give you any more details, but it's a very nice project for Saint John and I think people will be very proud of it."

Maybe it's a new 60-storey tower for uptown.

[Wrightguy0]

nothing more than thirty helladog
maybe TD will build a new headquarters next to peel plaza

[kwajo]

I wouldn't get your hopes up guys, this is McKenna we're talking about, who screwed Saint John over for many years as premier (I used the word 'screwed' loosely lol).

"I welcome you all here to this announcement today. I am happy to say that we at TD are expanding our New Brunswick workforce to over 400 employees - and moving them all to Moncton, which will now be known as the Insurance Hub of Atlantic Canada."

[Joe]

Have to agree with you on that one kwajo, then the other shoe dropped, Benard Lord.

[MonctonRad]

Originally Posted by kwajo

I wouldn't get your hopes up guys, this is McKenna we're talking about, who screwed Saint John over for many years as premier (I used the word 'screwed' loosely lol).

"I welcome you all here to this announcement today. I am happy to say that we at TD are expanding our New Brunswick workforce to over 400 employees - and moving them all to Moncton, which will now be known as the Insurance Hub of Atlantic Canada."

Hey, Moncton is already the insurance hub of Atlantic Canada. We have the head offices of both Assumption Life Insurance and Medavie Blue Cross Insurance.



(and before you guys start a flame war, I want you to know that I'm just teasing).

[Dmajackson]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

Hey, Moncton is already the insurance hub of Atlantic Canada. We have the head offices of both Assumption Life Insurance and Medavie Blue Cross Insurance.



(and before you guys start a flame war, I want you to know that I'm just teasing).

Well you guys should be financial capital too. You need a lot of money to pay for insurance

[Helladog]

Originally Posted by Wrightguy0

nothing more than thirty helladog
maybe TD will build a new headquarters next to peel plaza

Maybe they'll use the old synagogue/church as the first floor for Sunday services where we go to worship the almighty dollar...$

[Fischbob]

Originally Posted by kwajo

I wouldn't get your hopes up guys, this is McKenna we're talking about, who screwed Saint John over for many years as premier (I used the word 'screwed' loosely lol).

"I welcome you all here to this announcement today. I am happy to say that we at TD are expanding our New Brunswick workforce to over 400 employees - and moving them all to Moncton, which will now be known as the Insurance Hub of Atlantic Canada."

Or perhaps it will be: "We at TD are happy to announce the creation of a new call centre near Drury Cove. Tenders for construction of the parking lot will be released immediately."

[SJuser]

I see from the newswires this morning that the TD announcement is scheduled for this Wednesday and is regarding Waterfront development in Saint John. If we are lucky it will be regarding a new building, but more than likely they are contributing to a park / green space.

[PersonPlaceorThing]

Originally Posted by SJuser

I see from the newswires this morning that the TD announcement is scheduled for this Wednesday and is regarding Waterfront development in Saint John. If we are lucky it will be regarding a new building, but more than likely they are contributing to a park / green space.

The news release is from TD Giving - so I bet you are right. Also, Tim Vickers is mentioned as a guest, so I would guess that this is possibly related to Tin Can Beach or Marsh Creek.

[kwajo]

The press invitation for the event, suggests it is an education-related announcement intended to "enhance" Harbour Passage.

I'd be shocked if it was a new building of any kind.

[Helladog]

New health centre coming
Published Tuesday March 31st, 2009

C1BRUCE BARTLETT
TELEGRAPH-JOURNAL

SAINT JOHN - Residents on the eastern outskirts of the city will have a community health centre by early next year, thanks to a collaboration between St. Joseph's Catholic Church on Loch Lomond Road and the Department of Health.


Noel Chenier/Telegraph-Journal
Health Minister Mike Murphy announces a new community wellness centre at St. Joseph's Church on the Loch Lomond Road.

The parking lot of the small church past the airport was filled to overflowing Monday afternoon as dignitaries and local residents gathered in the basement to hear the announcement from Health Minister Mike Murphy and local MLA Stuart Jamieson, who is also minister of Tourism and Parks.

"This new addition will promote wellness in East Saint John and help reduce pressure on the health care system," Murphy said.

The decision to open community health centres around the province is designed to help people manage their health better through access to testing and advice, he said.

"St. Joseph's Parish is providing the space and in return the regional health authority will provide the nursing staff," he said.

The province gave the parish a boost in fundraising for the centre with a $200,000 grant from the Regional Development Corporation, which was announced Monday by Jamieson.

"I am proud of the work the church has done here," he said.

The community centre, which will contain offices for a nurse practitioner and a licensed practical nurse, will serves not only city residents, but people from St. Martins, Barnesville, Grove Hill and Baxters Corner, Jamieson said.

"We are looking at going to tender for the building, probably in April," said George Quigley, chairman of the pastoral council.

Mayor Ivan Court was also on hand to add his thanks to the province and the parish for bringing some new services to what he called the fastest-growing area of the city.

"I want to thank Minister Murphy for what he has done in giving back the health care system to the citizens of the province," Court said, in the name of his old friend Esmonde Barry, who championed the cause of providing localized care.

The building plans also contain space for a community police office and a recreation office. Nothing has been finalized, but common council has approved a motion allowing city manager Terry Totten to negotiate an agreement with the parish.

In the short term, the two-storey extension on the side of the church will create construction and engineering jobs, along with opportunities for area businesses. In the long term it will result in five to six positions for workers in pre-school and after-school programs, as well as at least two staff members for the centre, Quigley said.

The parish currently offers a licensed pre-school and after-school program run out of the rectory and the church basement, but is looking forward to having a new space by next year, he said.

The addition connected to the church by a breezeway will have three classrooms, a large community room that could seat 220 people or host dances, plus a full commercial kitchen. A second floor, covering about one-third of the ground floor, and served by an elevator, could have space for the wellness centre, city of Saint John programs and community policing.

The addition could also serve parish and community programs for both seniors and youths as well as provide space for community activities and celebration, he said.

Rev. Bill Elliott, who oversees of the parish, said the expansion is expected to cost $1.5 million and the fundraising campaign will get underway in April.

"It's a lot of work, but I'm 74 and I've still got a lot of life in me so we might as well go get it done,' he said.

A survey carried out before they decided to go ahead indicated there were many groups and individuals supporting the concept.

"We have some of the money in hand," Quigley said, referring to the Regional Development Corporation grant. "We are waiting to hear back from ACOA to see at what level they are going to support the project."

He expects donations will be forthcoming from corporations and individuals and that the parish will also raise some money.

They hope to break ground in June, so the building will be closed in and possibly completed by the end of the year, he said.

"That may be a bit optimistic, but we are certainly planning for full operation in early 2010," he said.