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Northern
Years est. 1954
www.northernsentinel.com
Volume 60 No. 14
Mall Hotel set for 2015 Cameron Orr By the end of this year the City Centre Mall should have its new restaurant open, anchored to the planned hotel which should be ready 12 months after construction begins. Mall owner Jerry Minni showed the Sentinel the plans for “The design is the building and some a little different of the floor plans last than the first week, following his design we company receiving the development permit came up with which sets conditions but we sort of for how the building jumped the will look. He just needs a gun.” construction permit now but he said it’s all lining up to begin building this spring. It will only be about two weeks, he anticipates, to get the construction permit and to put the project out to tender. The hotel will be built between the breezeway where the Salvation Army store was, to where the video store was. It will be a two storey hotel — three floors when you include the ground floor where a restaurant will be built — which is short of Minni’s original vision. “The design is a little different than the first design we came up with but we sort of jumped the gun a little in the sense that the footings here would only support so much weight,” he said. Any possible construction was also delayed last year because the mall’s original engineering plans were lost to time, meaning extra work had to be done to figure out how much the existing structures could support. But the new restaurant should be ready to go by the time the year turns to 2015. “We’re trying to push to get the roof on, the [restaurant] open by December 31 this year, and then we’ll continue on the inside of the rooms.” Minni purchased the City Centre Mall in 2006, and had ideas from the start to build a hotel. He said he began considering the land where Tim Hortons is now for his hotel, but then decided to build it over the existing mall. His entire plan for City Centre will cover two phases. By early to mid next year the hotel will be complete, ending phase one. Phase two will be an upgrade to the mall itself, inside and outside, and modernizing its look, similar in a way to how Terrace’s mall was recently renovated. Continued on page 6
Wednesday, April 2, 2014
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1.30 INCLUDES TAX
Today is the first day of advance voting for the plebiscite, and both sides of the question continue to battle it out for public opinion. The issue has also sparked the interest of our readers who have been pouring in letters on the subject. Those begin on the next page.
Kitimatian cooks way to success Cameron Orr Did you know the Sguazzin’s? Then you may already be familiar with a President’s Choice product in SuperValu right now. Those who watch the CBC series Recipe to Riches, where competitors race to have their food chosen for cash prizes and their product in the frozen food aisle, will have seen appetizer finalist Elisa Hendricks. And if Hendricks herself seems familiar, it’s because she was born and raised in Kitimat, and is now making a mark in the food world. “I’ve had contact from lots of wonderful old friends and from people who knew my family, and from people who get in touch with me and say ‘your mom was one of my favourite teachers,’” Hendricks told the Sentinel following her win. Her story has been shared widely since in Kitimat’s social media circles. “Being from Kitimat, no matter where you go in the world you’ve got this group of people who can always have
“I think lots of people in Kitimat would have had a version of this recipe.” your back.” Her award winning recipe is called Italian Lollipops, which may sound more like a dessert food, but the cheese and meat dish is anything but. “An Italian Lollipop is friulano cheese, mortadella, in a crispy coating on a lollipop stick,” she said. It’s been modified in some ways, especially to allow it to properly freeze and cook to be on store shelves, but in general its a recipe she adapted from her dad, Italo Sguazzin. “It’s a family recipe that my dad brought with him from Italy and I worked on it a little bit to make it work for this competition,” said Hendricks. A more resilient crust is among the major changes, using cornmeal. “I think lots of people in Kitimat would have had a version of this recipe
at one of my parents’ parties somewhere along the line growing up. I was born and raised in Kitimat, I was born in the old pink hospital that’s not there anymore,” she said. “My parents were always big entertainers and very active in the community and lots of people will remember them there.” The specific ingredients in the appetizer tell a story of her family history. “The friulano cheese is a really important part of it for me because it’s the cheese from the region of Italy that my dad is from which is called Friulano.” Her parents Italo and mom Cindy are, understandably, very happy for her. “My parents are just delighted and so pleased. I think in many ways this is about honouring them and that fusion of Canadian and Italian culture that I was so lucky to grow up with.” Hendricks is still connected to many friends in Kitimat but she calls Gibsons, BC her home now, on the Sunshine Coast, where she commutes to Vancouver for her work in social housing. Continued on page 3
PM477761
A guide to the plebscite process ... page 11