The Escarpment Park parking area and ADA walking paths have been installed and grading will soon take place. Informational plaques are being made and should be installed by 2026. Please stay tuned for more updates as we progress.
Welcome and greetings Niagara Escarpment fans! We have a long-awaited progress update.
You may have noticed the pathetically sad-looking building on our property at the top of the Ellison Bay hill is gone. Yep...gone. The building, after being thoroughly inspected by our general contractor (Amber Beard) in late 2019, was pronounced deficient or dangerous (for public use) in multiple areas, including structural code violations. Amber’s research revealed that correcting those issues would result in costs that were comparable or higher than starting over. So, our Board reluctantly decided to start over.
Because the structure was legally nonconforming, removal required rebuilding plans/commencement within one year of removal. Our Board began navigating a series of zoning challenges involving many meetings, additionally hampered by Covid-19, in order to rebuild the structure once it was finally removed. As the pandemic eased, and life approached a tentative semblance of normalcy, the Fire Department began, once again, using the building for training purposes. In late February of 2022, GEO-DC successfully completed all of our zoning challenges. We are no longer under the strict 1-year deadline for construction. The Sister Bay/Liberty Grove Fire Department was able to proceed in late May with the final real-time training of a successful and spectacular controlled burn.
We will now be able to use our cleaned-up property for staging hikes and other educational events, as we plan a capital campaign for our Niagara Escarpment Discovery Center.