By Brent Bosker

Northern community embraces arrival of national coffee chain

Jan 3, 2012 | 5:37 AM

The northern community of Buffalo Narrows is brewing with excitement over a Tim Horton’s location opening in the spring.

While the arrival of the franchise’s signature coffee and doughnuts has the community of 1,100 buzzing, the mayor, Bobby Woods believes attracting the national chain shows the community is a good place to invest and do business.

“We’re quite excited about that because we don’t know too many northern communities that have a Tim Horton’s,” Woods said.

“Businesses are looking at our community because we are certainly moving forward with our agendas. We’re inviting businesses to come in and look at the community and hopefully establish their own businesses here.”

The mini-Tim Horton’s will be a part of Northern’s new grocery store, which relocated to the community’s new six-million dollar commercial development in December.

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The complex also houses a bank, the village office and health services.

Woods credits the region’s economic development corporation for the success of the development and creating a business friendly climate that is leading to further growth.

“It’s helped us come a long way. We’ve developed properties in the community, we’ve built our new building here and we’re certainly working on other ventures.”

“It’s proven to be very fruitful for us and is a direct benefit to the community itself.”

The Pioneer Point project is the community’s newest venture that Woods said will be a mix of commercial, residential and tourism.

The village is partnering with six business people from Fort McMurray to develop a few hundred lots that Woods said are surveyed and ready to be sold.

“We’ve had people come in from as far away as B.C. We had 21 people come in on a plane to take a look at the community. They’re quite happy with it,” Woods added.

He said having the Tim Horton’s shows the community wants to move forward and is willing to support businesses that want to locate here.

bbosker@panow.com