Ottawa adds $800K to Naawi-Oodena design

Ottawa is laying nearly $800,000 as groundwork to further develop Canada’s largest urban reserve, located in Winnipeg on the former Kapyong barracks land.

The space where Mandy Gull-Masty made the announcement Thursday was recently developed. Motorists fuelled up at Oodena Gas & Convenience — the area’s first business — steps from where Canada’s Indigenous services minister took the podium.

But to Gull-Masty’s left was a barricaded construction zone. Further, across Kenaston Boulevard, was a yet-to-be-developed field.

The federal government’s funding will be spent on Naawi-Oodena’s infrastructure design costs, including site servicing, engineering and surveying, Gull-Masty said.

Over the coming decades, the area is planned to become a billion-dollar development across 109 acres. It runs along Kenaston Boulevard, just north of Grant Avenue to south of Taylor Avenue.

“When you’re really looking into the design, (that’s) what drives the next step in the path forward,” Gull-Masty said.

Ottawa’s contribution will cover 45 per cent of overall design costs, per Brokenhead Ojibway Nation Chief Gordon BlueSky, chairperson of Treaty One Nations.

Treaty One Development Corp. (T1DC) controls the majority of Naawi-Oodena lands (65 per cent; Canada Lands Co., a federal Crown, owns 35 per cent). The corporation, which encompasses the seven Treaty 1 signatories and is Treaty One Nations’ economic development arm, will pay for further design costs via debt financing through the Canada Infrastructure Bank and its own source revenue, BlueSky said.

Designs will outline roads, lighting, infrastructure, water, sewer and below-ground construction on 92 acres.

“From our perspective, these lands only become more valuable with having those,” he said.

Two-thirds of the design should be completed by spring, per Kathleen BlueSky, T1DC chief executive (and Chief BlueSky’s spouse).

At that point, a new phase of development should begin, she said.

Construction is ongoing near Oodena Gas & Convenience, which opened at 1871 Taylor Ave., in June. Workers will begin building a strip mall by the gas station in the coming weeks.

“We’re just working on a potential… health clinic,” Kathleen BlueSky said, considering the incoming tenants.

Eighty per cent of the building is taken, she added. She anticipates the new strip mall will open in February or March.

Construction on an apartment complex by Taylor Avenue, on the west side of Kenaston Boulevard, should begin in September, she relayed.

Treaty One Development Corp., has been working with engineering firm Tetra Tech.

T1DC and Canada Lands are jointly overseeing the design work and cost-sharing in a way reflecting land ownership, Kathleen BlueSky said.

“We want to have one seamless community,” she added. “We’re doing that work together to make sure the design is as efficient as possible.”

Planning sessions included discussions on tariff impacts before Canada and the United States fired levies at one another. Developers will have to pay higher costs in some cases, but often suppliers are Canadian, she said.

Plans for Naawi-Oodena include some 5,000 housing units and commercial, education, recreational and health spaces.

Politicians including Liberal MP Ben Carr (Winnipeg South Centre) and Sagkeeng First Nation Chief E.J. Fontaine (T1DC president) praised the development as a testament of economic reconciliation.

Ottawa’s total support for Naawi-Oodena’s infrastructure design, including Thursday’s announcement, is $1 million. It’s spent around $5.5 million on overall planning, training and site development.

gabrielle.piche@winnipegfreepress.com