Moncton considers 'Chinese village'
Parcel of land off Berry Mills road would become Chinatown with apartments, restaurants built in traditional Chinese architecture
2006/11/14
Times & Transcript
John Thompson admits its a little out there as far as ideas go, but he's convinced it can work.
The CEO of Enterprise Greater Moncton was part of a Moncton delegation that recently travelled to China.
In addition to cultural exchanges and promoting Moncton as a tourist destination, the delegation was flogging the idea of creating a Chinese village in the city.
Thompson says the project is a partnership between Enterprise Greater Moncton, the Golden World Chinese Culture Foundation headed by Université de Moncton professor Dr. Buquan Miao, and the City of Moncton.
The city has the land - a parcel off Berry Mills Road - Miao has the contacts, and Enterprise Greater Moncton the support for new investment.
The vision is to build a sort of Chinatown in Moncton, but one that goes beyond what is typically found in large Canadian cities like Montreal and Toronto.
Besides apartment buildings, restaurants, and markets, the village would boast traditional Chinese gardens and architecture, and become as much of a tourist attraction as Magnetic Hill and Crystal Palace.
More importantly, Thompson says they see the village as a way to help attract - and keep - immigrants in Metro Moncton.
"We have a lot of difficulty securing immigrants in the region and once we get them here, retaining them," he says. "One of the complaints of the immigrants is that we don't have a critical mass of any cultural entity."
Thompson says the village would provide some cultural familiarity so newcomers don't feel entirely out of place.
He says the idea has taken flak from people who worry the village would make it seem like the city is trying to keep all Chinese immigrants in one place, but Thompson says that is far from the intent.
"We're hoping that people that are not Chinese will also live in the village," he says.
"We're trying to make an attractive location. We want to build a beautiful area that people would want to live in. We also want people to visit and have that cultural exchange with different aspects of Chinese society."
Thompson says rather than ostracizing Chinese immigrants, the village would offer them a place to showcase and share their culture with their fellow Canadians.
"You have to do some things that are unique," he says. "I've heard detractors says this is a crazy idea and I go to them and say, 'Come up with something better.'"
That's the vision, but the true test was taking it to China to see if they could sell people there on the idea.
Thompson says he's brought back a stack of about 75 business cards and says they have some very promising leads on investors, not necessarily just for the village concept, but for the region in general.
He says they've already started corresponding with some of the interested investors and are now working to get some of them to visit in the coming months.
"We've generated some interest, now it is up to us to foster the relationship," he says.
Thompson says there is still a lot of work to do before the project gets off the ground.
The city would have to turn the property over to the Golden World foundation, something he does not expect to happen until there are enough investment commitments to make the project happen.
Thompson hopes if they can get enough Chinese investors to commit, local investment will follow.
He says now that they've started building some momentum, there is a window of opportunity to get the project going.
"Within the next 18 months if we don't see this moving forward, I don't think we will see it moving forward," he says.
"With any of these type of endeavours there is no guarantee. We went to China to see the level of interest, now we know there is interest, now it is up to us to bring it to reality.
"It is a lot of work, but we hope in 18 months to see something happening on the property."
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