Derek Baldwin

Aug 16, 2022

Six weeks after breaking ground on the new Belleville Agricultural Fairgrounds at Black Diamond Road and Highway 37, construction is fully under way to level and service the sprawling 60-acre property.

Dozens of pieces of heavy equipment are spread across the site in Thurlow Ward including four large shovel machines that began digging this week a deep trench along the northern edge of Black Diamond Road to make way for a new sanitary sewer line.

Belleville city officials said Cobourg Development Services Ltd. is excavating the site to connect the new sanitary sewer “to the existing sanitary main located within the intersection of Cannifton Road North and Black Diamond Road.”

“This work will require the closure of the section of Cannifton Road North, south of the Maitland Drive and Cannifton Road North intersection to the Hwy. 37 interchange, resulting in traffic being detoured to Tank Farm Road,” the municipality advised Tuesday.

The trenching work was expected to continue until Wednesday, according to the city.

Heavy equipment, meanwhile, continues to flatten the proposed fairgrounds property using large shovels, front-end loaders, bulldozers, grader machines and dump trucks.

The city broke ground June 29 on the land parcel which will be sectioned off into two pieces with the western end of the property containing 30 acres designated for industrial and commercial use parcels with the remaining 30 acres to the east reserved for the new home of the 206-year-old Belleville Agricultural Society.

The society’s 199th annual Quinte Exhibition fall fair will be held at the old city fairgrounds at Bridge Street West and Sidney Street offering the traditional Midway, displays and exhibits for its final year on the site Sept. 1-4.

The Quinte Ex is expected to move to the new Thurlow Ward fairgrounds in the fall of 2023.

When the new fairgrounds open next year, the ag society will enjoy exclusive use of the new fairgrounds and will move into a new headquarters building to be complemented by an array of other structures to host exhibitions, horse shows and of course the annual fall agricultural fair.

Cobourg Development Services Ltd. has been awarded the contract by the City of Belleville to extend the new sanitary sewer along Black Diamond Road to service the new Belleville Agricultural Fairgrounds site.

In June, city council agreed to spend $13.7 million to extend the sanitary sewer services and create new site services along Black Diamond Road signaling the start of development of the new project.

Council agreed to the expenditure coupled with an additional approval to spend a further $2 million more than originally agreed in the 2022 capital budget to cover construction and material cost increases between 20 and 30 per cent for items such as asphalt and large sewer pipes.

Deanna O’Leary, senior project manager with the city’s Engineering and Development Services, informed council earlier that a service connection pipe from the sanitary sewer will be installed to the property line of each property in the location selected by each property owner.

“Both lanes of Black Diamond Road will be resurfaced with new asphalt where the new sanitary sewer is planned to be installed under the roadway. Where the new sewer is north of the roadway, service trenches will be reinstated with asphalt,” O’Leary wrote.

New streetlights, meanwhile, will be installed this year along the north side of Black Diamond Road.

Other work to begin this work on the now-cleared property will include rough grading of the property and the construction of a stormwater management facility.