Skip to content

Games centre to get a Subway

Whitehorse athletes are about to get a few more food choices.On Monday, city council gave the green light for a Subway restaurant to move into the…

Whitehorse athletes are about to get a few more food choices.

On Monday, city council gave the green light for a Subway restaurant to move into the Canada Games Centre.

The new franchise will be owned by Ofelia Andrade, the wife of 2007 Canada Games Host Society president Piers McDonald.

City recreation manager Linda Rapp insists there is no conflict of interest.

“It’s exclusively a deal between Subway and the city and nothing to do with Canada Games Host Society,” she said.

The city owns the Canada Games Centre and it chooses who operates there regardless of what is happening from the Canada Games perspective, said the host society’s general manager Chris Morrissey.

“We had no decision on that,” Morrissey said.

“I know they want some of the space we’re currently in with the merchandise and we’ve agreed to the city with that, but that’s all it is.

“It goes to council, council approves those agreements and it’s out of our hands.”

The society will be looking for temporary food concession services for the Games, so there will be opportunities for other people to bid for that work, said Morrissey.

The new franchise will be Whitehorse’s third Subway restaurant.

Andrade also owns the other two.

The restaurant will take up half the space currently occupied by the Canada Winter Games merchandising boutique, and will offer take-out only.

“We know that our existing members are really going to be happy with some food service available in the facility,” said Rapp.

“For weekend tournaments and things like that when people and their families are spending the better part of several days, it’s a great option to get some real food,” she said.

The city contracted a commercial agent in May 2005 to seek potential food service tenants, said Rapp.

They had to send out two or three proposal calls before Subway stepped up to the plate.

For the time being, no other restaurants are scheduled to move into the centre.

“At this point, we haven’t ruled out the option of having additional food services provided, but for now we don’t have a space available,” said Rapp.

The games centre Subway is anticipated to open in five to six weeks.

The lease is for 10 years.

Subway has more than 26,000 restaurants in 85 countries.

Fox Haven comes closer

Jeff Luehmann cleared another obstacle Monday on his journey towards building a residential subdivision beside his golf course.

City council passed first reading of a rezoning bylaw, which will allow the Meadow Lakes Golf and Country Club co-owner to build 27 lots on land he originally leased from the Yukon government for an extra nine holes.

“We’re moving along at warp speed right now,” said Leuhmann, who has dubbed his impending development Fox Haven Estates.

The vote was unanimous.

Councillor Doug Graham, the only councillor to continually contest the project, was not present.

Graham has argued the land should have been put back on the open market once Luehmann decided he no longer wanted it for his golf course.

“We have to be able to say to the territorial government, ‘This isn’t right. We’re not going to rezone this land. If you want it rezoned, it should be put up for public tender,’” said Graham while Luehmann’s proposal was going through the Official Community Plan amendment process last month.

Still to come are the second and third readings for the zoning amendment and then a subdivision approval process.

“It sounds like they might have me through before the election (October 19th), but I’m not counting on it,” said Leuhmann, who has yet to buy the land from the Yukon government, a sale contingent on the city approving the zoning changes.

Luehmann said he was relieved last week when the city revealed a new legal interpretation for bylaw 2006-11.

The bylaw, which was passed in June through a citywide referendum, requires a planning study, greenspace map and area plebiscite for new developments in the city.

Originally the city said it would apply to all new developments, but now has discovered it will only apply to those that are in the process of drafting area development schemes.

Under the old interpretation, Luehmann may have had to pay up to $60,000 for a planning study and greenspace map.

But under the new interpretation, the bylaw does not affect his development.

“I haven’t heard it directly from (the city) yet, so it’s still an assumption,” he said.

“But I would say it’s a pretty good one.”

His neighbourhood had already undergone an area-development scheme 10 years ago, said Luehmann.

“I’m pretty happy.”

Two-tiered carts

The city will be implementing a new garbage and compost collection system.

Council agreed on Monday to buy $100,000 worth of standardized garbage and compost carts.

In the works is a “dual cart collection system,” modeled on similar schemes used in British Columbia and Alberta.

The system will provide Whitehorse residents with the standardized carts for their garbage and composting, the contents of which can be dumped into trucks using an automated lift.

Bags and garbage cans will become things of the past and residents will be able to throw garbage and compost directly into the appropriate carts.

The 2007 Canada Winter Games Solid Waste Committee has agreed to pay $40,000 for their use to handle garbage from the games.

In 2008, a small residential neighbourhood will be chosen for a 150-cart pilot project for the new dual-cart system at the cost of another $35,000.

The city has applied for a federal grant of nearly $70,000 to offset some of the costs.

Currently, collection crews must manually remove all solid waste bags from residents’ garbage cans.