Business View Magazine | December 2020

274 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE DECEMBER 2020 serve Niagara South and be built on 50 acres – 30 of which were donated by a local family and 20 acres that were purchased by the city. The entire acreage has been assembled and transferred to the Niagara Health System, so we’re really excited to move that ball forward. “Also, we’ve committed and are in the midst of commencing $4 million of investment in upgrading our GO Train station, which will include the station building, the platforms, the parking, streetscape improvements, some underground and roadway upgrades. We’re the terminus for the GO Train – it starts and ends here in Niagara Falls – and the AMTRAK comes into our station from Niagara Falls, New York. And there is discussion of high-speed rail connecting Toronto and New York – the beauty is it goes right through our city. Knowing that the GO Train expansion will happen, we’ve outpaced all the predictions and we meet regularly with Phil Verster, CEO of Metrolinx. He is very supportive of expanding to Niagara in big numbers, which we are known for – that definitely didn’t play to our strengths. But overall it worked out well.” BVM: Thinking beyond tourism, what other projects are on the go? Mayor Diodati: “The Niagara South Hospital project is moving forward nicely. It is still in the planning stages, and we’re anticipating ground breaking in 2021/22 (subject to the Province of Ontario). Then it will be a few years for the build. Of course, COVID has thrown schedules sideways but we have not slowed down on the planning aspect and the zoning and all the infrastructure the city has to do. We’re working closely with the Niagara Health System and the Ministry of Health to make this happen. With a price tag upwards of $1 billion, it will be a state-of-the- art, machine learning hospital that will have the benefit of being designed after SARS and COVID, so they will have learned a lot about ventilation systems, etc. And it’s long overdue, our current hospital is antiquated. The new complex will