Tolko Industries Limited is coming back to the High Prairie area.
It’s set to reopen its oriented strand board (OSB) mill during the first quarter of 2018. Located within the borders of Big Lakes County, it first shut down in 2008, at a time when North American housing starts fell to a generational low, reducing demand for OSB boards.
The company says that improving markets and housing start optimism is what prompted them to restart operations.
“We’re very happy to get this mill back up and running,” said Tolko President and CEO Brad Thorlakson in a news release. “We are confident that current improvements in market conditions are sustainable and that customer demand for Tolko OSB products will remain strong.”
Thorlakson also thanked the province for recently granting a five-year extension to the existing Tolko High Prairie forest management area, calling it a key requirement to restarting operations.
In an interview with the Trending 55 Newsroom, Lesser Slave Lake MLA Danielle Larivee says nine years is a long time, and that getting it back up and running is very important to the area.
“There’s 170 direct jobs are being created with this news,” said Larivee. “But including the indirect jobs, it’s actually more like 300. It’s really big for the High Prairie region to get this going again, because the area has been hurting since the mill was shut down.
“Forestry really is a high industry in northern Alberta,” she continued. “I’m so glad it’s starting to come back there. Certainly, with a brand new (Northern Lakes College) campus coming in the relatively near future, as well as the new hospital having just been opened, I think High Prairie is headed in the right direct, and it’s a great place to go and raise a family.”
“The restart of the mill will provide valuable jobs in the area,” echoed Chief Robert Grey of the Whitefish First Nation. “It’ll create shared responsibilities on forest management and environmental protection on our traditional lands.”
Also coming to the area is a Tim Horton’s store in High Prairie. Just recently, and agent for the company as applied for a development permit to build within the town at 3801 51st Avenue, right near where the new hospital is built.
High Prairie Mayor Linda Cox told the newsroom that the area’s getting really excited about the prospect of sipping their favourite Timmies coffee right in their home town.
“It’s been three years since we’ve been waiting for it,” she said. “Assuming that there are no objections, the town will issue the permit on June 28, 2017, which will allow the project to proceed.”
Cox says that many new entrepreneurs come to the town are usually surprised by the amount of traffic coming into High Prairie from the surrounding region.
“We actually have a trading area of over 13-thousand people,” she said. “But when developers see High Prairie, they only see a town of 2,600 people. Too small, they always say. And yet, once a business opens up, they’re usually floored. They usually end up in the top third for the entire province when it comes to sales.”
She listed Peavey Mart, Fields, and even the Bargain Store as a few examples of successful businesses in High Prairie.
“They came in thinking it was just going to be a small store,” said Mayor Cox. “And they’re blown away by the amount of traffic we generate. So now, when I talk to developers, I tell them they should go talk to these other places to ask them about the business climate within our town.”
Next week, on Friday, June 30, 2017, Big Lakes Economic Development Authority (EDA) and Minister Larivee’s office will be launching the “Big Lakes Diversification & SME Support Initiative,” which received $51,190 from Alberta’s Community & Regional Economic Support (CARES) program in February for its two-year project.
According to a Big Lakes County news release, the project expands a pilot project for agriculture to nine other sectors, including energy, forestry, transportation, tourism, education, construction, health, retail and communications.
The official presentation will go from 10:30 until 11:30 AM at Christie’s Gardens and Greenhouse at 74305 on Range Road 164.
– Posted by BET
