Life Savers plant to become condo development
A Toronto developer could give a whole new meaning to the phrase "home sweet home" with a five-storey condominium project at the former Life Savers candy plant on Cumberland Avenue.
Archer Development Corp. is proposing to renovate and repurpose the vacant and dilapidated two-floor factory near Sanford Avenue that closed down in 2004. Three floors will be added to the existing structure to create a total of 65 units.
The Life Saver Lofts Condominium Development still requires zoning amendments as well as environmental remediation of the land but the developer expects to start construction in the spring or summer of next year. The nearby city-owned Lifesavers Park will not be affected by the construction.
"I believe this project will be in the best interest of the neighbourhood and the city as a whole," said city councillor Sam Merulla, who was speaking on behalf of Ward 3 councillor Bernie Morelli who is on sick leave.
"Bernie has been working on this for a number of years," he said. "It is a text book example of old meets new development, increasing the residential tax base."
The project will be built on the 1.46 acres (0.59 hectares) of property and have street level and underground parking.
An informal public meeting about the project was held Tuesday night at St. Peter's hospital. But Eldon Theodore, from MHBC, a company hired by Archer Development to guide the project through the planning process, says another more formal meeting will be held at City Hall either late in December or January.
"The developer has been working over the past five years to bring an application forward and they finally have come up with a design and a model that they think will work," said Theodore.
He didn't know the total cost of the project and said the cost per unit is still being worked out.
The Life Savers plant was a fixture in Hamilton for 80 years, employing at its peak more than 100 people. It is remembered for sweet smells of butterscotch, beechnut and other flavours that were sent wafting through the neighbourhood from the production line.
The plant began in 1922 as a division of Beech-Nut of Canajoharie, New York, making chewing gum. Ten years later Beech-Nut and Life Savers amalgamated leading to the Life Savers production moving into the Hamilton plant to supply the Canadian market.
Through the mid-to-late '90s the plant began to backslide with the factory going through a series of different owners. When Kraft Foods took over it announced that all Life Savers for North America were going to be produced at a new mega-plant near Montreal. The last trickle of workers at the Hamilton plant lost their jobs in June 2004.
mmcneil@thespec.com
905-526-4687 | @Markatthespec
http://www.thespec.com/news-story/41...o-development/
Prev
Linear Mode
