McCormac updates council on economic development
August 23, 2023, 10:25 am
by Kevin Weedmark
Moosomin Economic Development Officer Casey McCormac attended the Moosomin Town Council meeting Wednesday to discuss some of the projects she is working on, from housing to new businesses to health care.
“The biggest thing I’ve been working on for the last month has been the application for the housing accelerator funding, which is due this Friday. Lola, our grant writer, sent us our application at the end of the day today. She did an awesome job on that and I’ll go over that tomorrow. We will need 42 units over three years to get the funding. The apartments will count, so that’s already 24.
“The only other thing we need for that is a housing needs assessment. We don’t need it completed for the application, we just need to get it started. We got a quote for one, which is $19,300.
“It’s useful beyond just the grant, it will be useful for any developer. It will take 14 weeks to complete,” McCormac told council.
“If we’re going to attract any residential development at all, that’s important to have,” added Murray Gray, chair of the Economic Development Committee.
“Once towns have had this done, they’ve seen a lot more developers come in, because they have it done. We could possibly use Targeted Sector Support funding to pay for the study.”
She told council she attended the opening of a massive new greenhouse in Dauphin that is the first of its kind on the Prairies.
“Kevin and I went to Dauphin a couple of weeks ago for the grand opening of the greenhouse and we got to talk to Maria, who is one of the founders of the greenhouse.
“They have 35 employees right now and once they get up to 70 acres they will have 200 employees.”
McCormac said she has been working with the Southeast Recovery Centre on a proposal for addictions treatment in the Moosomin area.
“We had a meeting with the SHA and the Ministry of Health to discuss the proposal for the recovery centre here and what they want us to provide. We met with Minister Hindley later that afternoon, which was a really good meeting.”
McCormac said she has also been working with the Moosomin Visual Arts Centre as it works on securing a facility. She is working on a business plan for the group. “I need the numbers and location to finalize the business plan,” McCormac said.
She told council she is also working on several other projects.
“I worked on Communities in Bloom quite a bit and I think it was a very successful project and I think it was good for economic development. The booklet we created for it will be really good for economic development.
“I had sent out surveys to business owners on what they think Moosomin needs and what we can do to help. That’s actually how the arts centre project started. Krista Crellin responded to the survey and said we are lacking in the arts, so that was a good thing to do.
“I have gathered population stats for Moosomin and different areas like Estevan, Humboldt, Melfort, Assiniboia to compare our trading area to theirs, because we’re bigger than some of them, so that’s useful information to show businesses our large trading radius.”
