Welcome to Alberta’s Gateway to the Oil Sands
Northern Gateways, consisting of over 1000 acres of multiple zoned land serviced by both a truck bypass highway and a CN rail line, is an exciting new development by Sandpiper One Developments in Lac La Biche, Alberta. The available zoning includes highway commercial with four kilometers of highway frontage along the truck by-pass on Highway 881, commercial retail development, business park, light industrial warehousing and manufacturing as well as residential for multiple and single family homes. Lac La Biche is located two hours north-east of the city of Edmonton at the strategic crossroads leading to Alberta’s two major oil sands areas: north to Fort McMurray and east to Cold Lake.
The proposed commercial retail area will have a Power Center, anchored by several Big Box stores, as its focal point. A variety of national and regional chain stores and food services, as well as local retail shops, services, hotels, and restaurants will complement the Big Box stores, creating an exciting new service center for the 17,000 to 25,000 people that live in the Lac La Biche trading area. Several oil sands companies “desire to look south to Lac La Biche as a service centre… and the use of Highway 881 south through Lac La Biche as the main transportation corridor for the(ir) projects.”1
A business park with professional office buildings will be designed to accommodate administrative needs of the myriad oil, gas, and service companies in the region.
A light industrial district with access to both a highway and a rail line will provide oil service companies with manufacturing and storage space as well as easy access for shipment of supplies and products.
The residential component of this development includes a proposal for over 2,500 doors, serviced with water and sewer. The residential density will be varied and include condominiums, multiple-story apartments, 3- or 4-story attached townhouses, as well as single and duplex houses on small, regular, and large city lots. The Northern Gateways residential community will be architecturally controlled to ensure your investment. There will be space for 200 lakefront homes on two natural lakes on the property, Claude Lake and Birkland Lake. Phase One of the Birkland Lake residential development is a 700 door, multi-phased proposal located within 500 meters of the new $62 million Sports Multiplex and a 12,000 sq ft library. In the near future, the county plans to build two schools adjacent to the Multiplex.
Lac La Biche has all of the facilities and amenities to make it an ideal location for a family to settle down and start a business: a 23 bed hospital with 10 doctors, a community college with seven major areas of study, a fire hall, a police station, an airport with an all-weather paved 1,785 m runway (to be extended by 300 m to accommodate 737’s), a brand new Sports Multiplex; all of this surrounded by some of the most beautiful lakes and countryside in Alberta.
With competitive land prices, all of the amenities in town, and close proximity to the oil sands, Northern Gateways in Lac La Biche will be a great place to establish your family and your business.
1Social Baseline and Potential Cumulative Development Scenario for Lac La Biche Country, Report by Matrix Solutions Inc. for Lac La Biche Regional Industry Consultation Committee, April 2008. pg. 3-4.