Engineering A Complex Solution

More digging and leaning on inside moles.

It’s true after all what I said about the engineering complex. The Star story made a number of University people very angry for obvious reasons and the word is now slowly coming out!

The Urban Village may well be replaced by a huge University of Windsor initiative focused around its new Engineering complex. The complex will be positioned to be one of the premier automotive research facilities in the world!

It has nothing to do with the municipal City politicians but has everything to do with the University and the Provincial cabinet members for this City and whether sufficient funding can be made available to jump-start the project.

Apparently, the coming of Ed Lumley as Chancellor of the University of Windsor was a breath of fresh air. Check out Wikipedia.com for his background including that he was born in Windsor and went to University here. His Federal Cabinet portfolios are very impressive. In other words, he knows how to really THINK BIG but more importantly how to carry out plans. He is a doer not a bureaucrat or a dreamer! The Globe calls him a "rainmaker!"

What is even more important to Windsor is that he was the Lead Director of Magna International Inc. Yuppers, that Magna that might take over DCX! Can you imagine that. Build on the existing DCX Automotive Research and Development Centre that the University already has.

Interestlingly, I received this note from an attendee at the Business Association meeting:

• "Maybe I missed it, but I don't remember anything being said at the DWBIA AGM regarding the U of W doing something at the urban village site. There was a vague reference by the mayor about wanting more education in the downtown core, but I must have fallen asleep during the alleged U of W plans."

It appears that Eddie must have given part of the story to the Star since the Star said Eddie

• "announced plans for "a significant project" Wednesday after speaking to the Downtown Windsor Business Improvement Association's annual general meeting."

What a nerve...he "announced." I imagine now that he will try and take the credit if it happens and to keep the business people downtown off of his back! After all the RFP for the Urban Village was supposed to have been out several months ago.

I just hope that this "announcement" does not kill the deal given the secrecy up to now. There are lots of people wanting cash from the Provincial Government for their part of the Province! At least the University President knew how to give a non-answer!

The potential for Windsor---thousands of high-paying R&D jobs for professionals and a true renaissance for Windsor based on our automotive roots. Combine that with the billion dollar plus bridge enhancement project and road to the border construction and look out world, here comes Windsor! This is the real way to re-develop our downtown and the rest of this City.

And it does not hurt Sandra's and Dwight's re-election chances either. From what I hear, Sandra is the main mover and shaker politicially. Perhaps this time she will make sure that Eddie does not try to steal her thunder in a Henderson column! It's big time jobs, not minimum wage ones.

For the University, big money for a big project and fundraising made easy as alumni throw money at this huge project. Hmmm how about calling it the "Frank Stronach Engineering Complex." Sounds good to me after a sufficiently large donation of course.

What is ironic is that Eddie who has not worked well with the University may be the big beneficiary of all of this. It will be done in spite of him yet he can take the credit since it happened under his watch as Mayor. {sigh}

Funny though, the ultimate irony for Eddie….the concept is one that Mike Hurst and Dennis DesRosiers advocated. Remember what Dennis wrote to me that I Blogged previously:

• "…your previous Mayor was quite concerned... Mike Hurst asked me to come back to him with a few ideas for the City of Windsor to respond. My conclusion was that there was little that the City of Windsor could do to stop the erosion of the GM, Ford and DCX position in Windsor Essex county…
  
  The other thing we identified came from what Yves Landry who once told me ... that "the future of the automotive sector was the six inches between our ears" .. Quite insightful and another one of the reasons Mr. Landry should be viewed as the greatest man to ever step foot in Essex county. We picked up on this and recommended that the City of Windsor aggressively pursue a strategy of attracting "intellectual capital" to the area… Why not reposition Windsor - Essex County as the "Intellectual Capital" of Canada's automotive sector and one of the key intellectual centres in the entire global automotive sector. Now that's dreaming big and a lot more reachable than digging a billion dollar tunnel under the Ojibway environmental reserve.”

PS Ahhhhhhh it's nice to see that I scooped the Star on this story too. Henderson's story is reasonably accurate except Gord forgot to mention the real mover on this file, Ed Lumley. He also cannot bring himelf to give any credit to Hurst or DesRosiers either can he!

I understand that there are some very angry Board members that wil have to be calmed down. I wonder how Board members must feel reading about the project from interviews of Messrs Komsa and Paul rather than hearing about it directly. I would not be too pleased and would let those two know in no uncertain terms.

Moreover, given Councillor Postma's remarks the other day, she knew nothing about it. If Eddie has been working on this since February, Councillors were kept in the dark too until he decided to let them in on it. ie after HE gets all of the publicity!

Talk about Councillors being totally irrelevant to this Mayor. Now he has somethng to say at the conference next week other than how the Capitol was killed!