Midland Bay Landing is on the cusp of a restart, and a ‘kickoff’ presentation at the recent Midland council meeting had several on the raised dias excited for community engagement.
During the committee of the whole meeting, consultants KPMG LLP shared a slideshow with buzzwords, targets and community engagements, pitching what could become of the 1.1-kilometre Georgian Bay waterfront brownfield site that had been a subject of contention throughout recent years.
Shawn Oakley, director of KPMG real estate advisory services, told council and attendees that the 40-acre waterfront development opportunity was “unique, not only within Simcoe, but within Ontario and probably nationally.”
The presentation was Phase 1 of what was described by Mayor Bill Gordon last year as “an RFP for the RFP”; before the town would put the property out for a request for proposal, an earlier request for proposal would utilize KPMG to help focus, market, and attract large-scale developers to the project with a Phase 2 starting goal of April 2026.
Oakley spoke to several draft items including site context, the procurement process work plan, a public engagement strategy, vision statement, and guiding development principles.
Regarding building density at the site, Oakley noted that while town-homes could use up available greenspace, developers were keen to use higher buildings to provide more ground amenities for residents.
“There’s a trade-off,” said Oakley. “If you’re looking to get the same amount of housing units, a lot of communities now are focusing on going higher and providing a lot more greenspace that the public can use and enjoy.”
Announced during the meeting was that public engagement sessions would be taking place in two open houses at the North Simcoe Sports and Recreation Centre on April 15, from 2 to 4 p.m., and from 6 to 8 p.m. Also, a survey would be available on the Engaging Midland page of the town website, along with all other projects by the municipality.
Several on council expressed excitement over getting the public involved in discussions, with Gordon pointing to the publicly available documents on the website.
Following the meeting, Gordon spoke to MidlandToday on how the KPMG kickoff had differed from the previous vision by the Midland Bay Landing Development Corporation, who had halted in 2023 through numerous reasons including transparency and community representation.
“In many ways, it’s the same concept. We don’t want to have something that’s single-use down there,” said Gordon. “We want to have something amazing.
“The reset is an opportunity to go back to market with fresh community input – which some of it may be the same old community input; fair enough,” Gordon said. “The developing community will dream stuff up for it, and whoever we ultimately award it to will be done in collaboration with the community. The community will see the designs and they’ll help us pick. Then we’ll change the Official Plan to match whatever we pick.
“It’s really a fundamental reset on the way we’re doing the business, not on what the end goal is.” Gordon added: “The old plan and the new plan, I think, are going to look very different; but how we’re getting there is really the big change – that’s the rethink.”
The KPMG project kickoff report for Midland Bay Landing, including slideshow, is available in the council agenda on the town of Midland website.
Council meetings are held every third Wednesday, and can be viewed on Rogers TV cable channel 53 when available, or through the livestream on the Rogers TV website. Archives of council meetings are available through Rogers TV and on the Town of Midland’s YouTube channel.