Builder partner sought as Port McNicoll resort reboots

August 31, 2017


Original rendering shows what was once planned at Port McNicholl Resort Village.

The new owners of the stalled Port McNicoll Resort Village on Georgian Bay are looking for a “builder partner” as they reboot a development that was once envisioned as a $1.6 billion megaproject with 1,400 homes.
But developer Skyline International, which bought the 1,126-acre site in 2011 and had all the building permits in place, stopped the project years ago. 
The site has now been sold and the new owners plan to bring the Port McNicoll Resort project back to life.
Toronto-based Milborne Group, urban real estate and infrastructure fund manager CIM Group, and an unnamed foreign company are partnering on the project, which was purchased for $42 million. There was an initial payment of $4.2 million, with the balance to be paid over the next six years, according to media reports.
“There’s potential there to build somewhere between 1,500 and 1,800 homes— single family, townhouses, stacked townhouses and three- or four-storey frame,” according to Hunter Milborne, CEO of Milborne Group, one of Ontario’s largest residential developers.
Milborne said the property, located a 70-minute drive north of Toronto near the town of Port McNicoll on the southern shore of Georgian Bay, can also accommodate a 1,000-slip marina on its 10.5 kilometres of lakefront.
It may take a decade to build out the site once a new master plan is in place.
“The community has been very supportive and I think they’re happy to have new ownership and management so they can see something happen,” Milborne told Property Biz Canada. “We may look for a partner to help with the marina and also another builder partner because there are so many homes to build.”