Business View Magazine - October 2018

236 237 REGION OF QUEENS MUNICIPALITY, DAVID DAGLEY MAYOR rebound. The province purchased the 550,000 acres of woodland owned by Bowater Mersey, and has put it back into production. All the harvesters previously employed by Bowater are still working. The province also owns the Bowater site, where it has demolished buildings that were no longer usable, to decrease their assessment footprint. Several businesses have come to that location through Nova Scotia Lands, Nova Scotia Business Incorporated, or Innova Corp, which are all provin- cial start-up efforts. One of the onsite employers, R. J. MacIsaac, was successful in acquiring tenders for recycling three naval vessels. And they’ve recycled the Farley Mowatt, a smaller vessel that was anchored in Shelburne Harbour. Mersey Sea Foods, a scallop and shrimp fishing company on the harbor in Liverpool, is in the process of building what it claims will be the most modern scallop processing plant in North America. It’s now under construction at the company’s exist- ing site and it’ll be renovating other buildings on the property once that is completed. At present, it employs 150 people. Aqualitas, a Canadian Licensed Producer of can- nabis has set up shop at the Port Mersey site in a 70,000-sq.-ft. building where it is growing mar- ijuana for medical purposes; it will also include recreational cannabis when that becomes legally available in Canada on Oct. 17. Mayor Dagley re- ports, “They are an aggressive company, they’re in- creasing their employment footprint, and will be a successful story as we move forward in Queens because of the new jobs.We also have a sawmill and exporter, Freeman Lumber, in Greenfield, that employs about 150 people.White Point Beach Resort operates year round and is approaching 200 employees.We have a local call center that employees 75 people and many other smaller employers that are just as important. And about 100 employees work for the Region of Queens Municipality, in addition to seasonal work crews.” Real estate is booming in the Region of Queens. A testament to the fact that the population is growing, almost double the transfer tax has been collected this year on home sales than was tak- en in three years ago. Contractors, carpenters, plumbers, and electricians are working flat out on renovations to newly-purchased homes. In fact, there is a six to eight month wait for a carpenter and more carpenters are moving to the area to seize the opportunity. The Region has also taken stock of the lands it owns as a municipal govern- ment. It’s listed and sold some surplus properties and done some RFPs, internally, to the public. Plaza Retail REIT purchased two acres of land at Queens Place and erected a 13,000-sq.-ft. build- ing that is operating as a Dollarama. “That’s important,” says Dagley, “because the ad- jacent municipality of Shel- burne doesn’t have one, so that business will draw a lot of shoppers to Queens. We have also looked at vacant schools that have been turned back to the Region from the province. We transferred one in Mill Village for a dollar to DEVI International Boarding School. They’re bringing in- ternational students in and it’s providing employ- ment for six teachers.”Another school was sold to a developer who intends to build apartments on the property. And on a larger, 32-acre property