A planned Bedford community so large that its population would surpass Truro was unveiled yesterday.
Dubbed the Parks of West Bedford, the project has already begun construction but will take 25 years to fully complete.
The area will span 1,300 acres with an estimated population of 18,000 people living in 6,000 dwellings. The “fully-planned master community” will start on the edges of Highway 102 and Hammonds Plains Road, and spread back.
It starts with a business park capable of hosting more than 700,000 square feet of office space. Research In Motion’s complex is already nearby.
Behind that there’s a 300-foot buffer of green space, then a wide variety of homes from large family houses to townhouses and apartments. There’s also room for things like nursing homes, churches and schools.
The area is guided by a Halifax Regional Muncipality master plan, but the designing is being done by West Bedford Holdings, a partnership of Clayton Developments and Cresco.
Holdings president Richard Miller said the group has already spent or committed $42 million, and will spend an average of $10 million over the next five years.
“We’re very aware of what the challenges are with this economy. It’s not going to be easy in the next little while,” Miller said. “But we have the confidence of ourselves, the confidence of our bank investors that are working with us here.
“We’re going to throttle it. If we have to commit more resources and do additional servicing because of what we foresee market demands to do, we will do that.”
Road construction has begun, with houses to follow in the fall, the first of which are scheduled to go on sale next spring.
