– by Sharon Smith

I attended the monthly meeting of CWDI yesterday and have a few updates. These updates are as I understood them.

Community Input: due to the covid restrictions CWDI will not be holding in-person meetings for community input as planned. Instead, they will post online a video and a questionnaire around December 10th. We will be able to add our comments to the questionnaire. It will be available for about a month, allowing everyone time to participate.

City Commissioners: CWDI will be offering a project update to the current city council at the December 14 meeting, unless they defer to the new council. An important question to be put before the council is approval of the port and gateway property transfer from the city to CWDI.

Peregrine Memory Care Facility: the reason for CWDI’s interest in the facility is that they have a mandate to seek economic development opportunities. The facility will not be on the water, but rather on the corner of the hospital property on Byrne Street (north? or east? corner). The facility is expected to create 65 – 80 jobs, with a payroll of $2-3 million and purchased goods and services of around $1 million. This allows the project to receive grants from the federal government for building-out the infrastructure for the entire site, which is projected to cost $8 million.

The meeting was then closed to the public as the Board went into closed session to discuss the proposals for businesses to locate on Sailwinds: RAR, Yacht Maintenance and Peregrine. None of the proposals under consideration are a done-deal.