Business View Magazine | March 2018

130 TIMMINS, ONTARIO parks within our community-Whitewater Park in the east end of town andHollinger Park in the Central por- tion,”Jensen continues.“Both are verypopular parks to residents in our community,as well as visitors.Council has allocated approximately$2.5million in funding to enhance both of these parks.We’ve hosted detailed, public,input sessions in 2016 and 2017,to give us an idea of what the publicwould like to see done.And that will help to formulate five-year capital plans for these parks.” Timmins is also paying attention to its downtown core.“Themain downtown for the city,today,is reg- istered as a BIA,a Business ImprovementArea,”says Mayor Steve Black.“There’s an urban park there in the BIA,and they’ll do various events throughout the summer.Very recently,wewent through amajor hydro project,downtown,that involved constructing hydro vaults in order tomove all the overheadwires under- ground,to beautifyand improve the downtown aes- thetics.Theyalso set up decorative LED lights,and they have ongoing projects for beautification.” “We have a Community Improvement Program (CIP) that has been in place since 2007to help promote growth and development in our downtown core, recognizing that the infrastructure is already in the ground and is underutilized,”Jensen adds.“So,rather than expanding the boundaries of the cityand ex- tending infrastructure,we’re trying to take advantage of what’s already there,andmaximizewhat we have. We’ve been very successful in terms of attracting a number of major projects,downtown,in recent years. We had a brand newfederal building constructed; we had a reconstruction of a former retail site; we had a major hotel development; and a redevelopment of a former hospital into a retirement home.So our CIPhas been very successful in terms of offering incentives and