The town has retooled the opening phase of its ambitious Petawawa Point revitalization project to increase its chances of securing grant money.

Last month, council agreed to submit two applications to the federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario, which recently launched the Ontario allocation of the $49.6 million Community Infrastructure Investment Fund (CIIF). The fund supports the repair and upgrade of community and recreational facilities on a 50/50 cost sharing basis.

Projects must be completed by March, 2014. The town forwarded an application to the CIIF to proceed with detailed design work for the Petawawa Point redevelopment initiative.

Parks and recreation manager Kelly Williams told council this week that initially CIIF application guidelines stated that infrastructure designs would be considered for an eligible project cost. However, since then he has become aware of additional information.

“Essentially, the project has to be shovel ready, however, we don’t want to lose the opportunity,” said Mr. Williams.

Staff decided to scale back phase one to include repair and construction, along with topographic survey and engineering work, that will result in $578,958 in costs. Should the grant be approved, the town’s share would be $289,479. The project cash flow from the grant would see $65,631 coming next year with $223,848 in 2013-2014 fiscal year.

The town has applied for a grant to rehabilitate the Catwalk. The initial remediation would involve capping the main wall to the west and repairing damaged areas along the entire length of the Catwalk at a estimated cost of between $350,000 and $380,000.

Under an application to the CIIF, the town would be requesting $175,000.

Mayor Bob Sweet noted that the competition for the CIIF funds will be stiff adding three applications are coming out of Renfrew County alone. In June, council received a consultant’s report recommending $5.3 million to redevelop Petawawa Point Park over the next few years. The final concept plans for the beach and boat launch areas of the Point promises to change the face of the area and revitalize the community’s aquatic and boating recreational hub. The plan includes creating a park area at the west point where the two rivers meet, a fishing pier, canoe drop-in facility, lookouts, docks and benches along the rivers.

Sean Chase is a Daily Observer multimedia journalist

sean.chase@sunmedia.ca