Plan app.rioved for large retail centre s By Mike Kowalskî Two major wholesale-retail warehouse centres proposed for south Whitby have Mn recomn- mended for approvai. Whitby's planning and deve- lopment conirittee recommen- ded Monday that Town council support an application from Invar Industrial Ltd. te amend Durham Reizion's officiai plan. Invar is seeking the amend- ment to build the $5.5-miliion warehouses on 22 acres of land on Victoria St., east of Thickson Rd. S. The buildings' tenants would be the Price Club and Aiken- head's -- whoiesale/retail/ware- housing operations which spé- cialize in bulk merchandizing. The Price Club, an American- owned business, is primariiy a bulk food distribution centre that does not cater to the general public but operates on a restric- ted membership basis. Aikenhead's, owned by Molson Breweries, is a building supply/ garden centre open to the general public. The Price Club would be housed in a 116,000-sq. ft. faci- lity and Aikenhead's in a 126,000 sq. ft. building. The cornmittee's recommenda- tion calîs on council to support Invar's application now before the Region. (Aplications to amend Wihitby's officiaI. plan and zoning bylaw wili be dealt with by cern- mittee on March 15.) The intended site is now desig- nated industrial in Durham's existing officiai plan and as an employment area la its revised p la n which is stili awaiting Ontario government approval. But neither the current nor prôposed Region plan permits wholesale/retail/warehouse uses in that location, a Town planning department report notes. A1though they have yet to deai with the application as it per- tains to the Town's own criteria, cornmittee members did not hide their enthusiasm for the project. The staff report states the pro- posai will generate 540 new jobs as opposed to an estimated 155- 2Q5 jobs if the site is developed for traditional industrial uses. "I had concerns initialiy but not any longer,» said councillor Dennis Fox. "With this recession, wholesale operations are becoming a rea- iity. This wili iikely set a trend for this type of business," he SEEl PAGE 8 Atlantic Packad.J- J Lg could be site Of generating station GLEN DHU students Elissa Cormier and Craig Hannans (top photo) celebrate the 1 Oth day of school with a hug -- tvvo of 100 students (of course!) who engaged ln hugs. Students also brought in collections of 100 things to mark the occasion. Aimee Chhen (bottom photo) is shown with her 100 Easter eggs as Bellwood public school kindergarten students celebrated their i Oth day of school Feb. 25. Phoo vPtr Tombin and Mark Reesor.WhIthv, FreePress By Mike Kowalski AWitby company is anxi- ously awaiting ntario Hydre approval of an on-site generating station capable of producing al its nryrequirements. AtatcPackaging is one of 16 Ontario locations proposed as Ptential sites for a Non-Utiiity Cenerator (NUG). If Hydro offliciais give their approval, the $85-miiiion generating station will serve a two-old purpose. Not only will it suppiy power te the Thickson Rd. S. paper recycling plant, but it wili make use of the massive amounts of steam exhaust produced in the hecInpoje sSa joint proposaI of Atlantic Packagring and B rit- ish Gas, parent company of Con- sumers Gas. It is touted by Scott Stevens of British Gas as "model of modem industrial development" for the province. "You would have a 100 per cent. recyciing miii with an 80 per cent energy efficient cogenerating plant," said Ste- vens, manager of project develop- ment for British Gas. "This would net be your teical rust belt Ontario plant, he added. But before construction of the 60-megawatt power plant can begin, Ontario Hydre must first decide if cogeneration is the path As Stevens explained, the idea for the Atlantic facility teok root three years age. «Hydre put eut proposais te privte producers because at that time they were short of power,» he said. 'We looked. around and identi- fied Atlantic Packaging as a good site and we negotiated with Hydro to purchase the power."y But last year Hydreo deter- mined that it had too much power for its neads, so a freeze was put on vil NUG projects, Stevens said. «We renegotiated and brought it down to a 60-rnegawatt project (fromn the original 120),» he said. «Now they're evaiuating them ail, along w .th aIl their other options." Hydro is to make its decision by early May, Stevens said. 'We're sti Il hopeful it will pro- ceed, but if they decide they on't need it now or for WX number of years it's a question of whether we could'afford to keep it alive." If Hydro hnd approved the NUG program last year, con- struction would have begun this summer, with completion in 1995, Stevens said. Approximately 250 jobs would have been created in building the plant, with another 16 jobs te operate it. Stevens said project pro- ponents do not intend te sit back and wait for Hydro's decision. "We've been contacting local interest groups tri drum up sup- port for it, te, have them cali Hydre and the MPPs,m he said. Atlantic general manager Bob Nelson said the proposed NUG is an ideai situation» for his corn- SEEPAGE5