{"id":26052,"date":"2020-02-27T23:00:36","date_gmt":"2020-02-28T04:00:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=26052"},"modified":"2020-03-06T18:11:26","modified_gmt":"2020-03-06T23:11:26","slug":"mayor-focused-on-keeping-magna-in-aurora","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/mayor-focused-on-keeping-magna-in-aurora\/","title":{"rendered":"Mayor focused on keeping Magna in Aurora"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Mayor Tom Mrakas has\nreaffirmed his efforts to keep Magna\u2019s headquarters in Aurora.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mayor Mrakas outlined\nongoing talks between his office and Magna, one of the Town\u2019s largest\nemployers, at the annual Mayor\u2019s Luncheon, hosted by the Aurora Chamber of\nCommerce on Wednesday afternoon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nearly 250 Chamber\nmembers, dignitaries and residents at large came out to the Royal Venetian\nMansion on Industrial Parkway South for the occasion, which has become a \u201cState\nof the Town\u201d tradition for the Head of Council. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There, Mayor Mrakas\nfocused on a year of \u201cpositive change\u201d as well as tasks ahead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Among these tasks, he\nsaid, were making the Town an attractive place for Magna to stay, securing\ngovernment grants to bring Council\u2019s vision of Library Square to fruition, and\naddressing the needs of Wellington Street East businesses that will be impacted\nby Metrolinx\u2019s ambitious project to build an underpass across one of Aurora\u2019s\nbusiest thoroughfares ahead of increased GO Train service.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOne of the things I\nam most proud of is the work we have done and are continuing to do to keep the\nMagna headquarters in Town,\u201d said Mayor Mrakas. \u201cAlthough calling Aurora home\nsince 1997, Magna announced in 2015 that they would be leaving their existing\nheadquarters and would [build] a new facility in a neighbouring municipality.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Magna\u2019s decision to\nbuild a large campus on lands secured in King Township have been put on the\nbackburner since then and Mayor Mrakas said, \u201cthe company recently began their\nsearch for a new home once again.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSince becoming\nMayor, I have made it a priority to work with [Magna CEO] Don Walker and senior\nexecutives at Magna to ensure that they stay here in Aurora,\u201d he continued.\n\u201cNow, I have been a very vocal advocate for Aurora as the best place for them\nto stay and continue to grow their business. Since joining our community more\nthan two decades ago, they have been one of the biggest corporate headquarters\nto call Aurora home. Magna has not only brought international recognition to\nour Town, it has generated hundreds of important jobs for our community. Aurora\noffers a highly educated and skilled workforce and having residents be able to\nwork close to home at companies like Magna has always been a priority.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen Magna announced\nthat they would be moving out of Aurora, it was a huge blow to our community.\nAside from the economic impacts of Magna leaving, there are social impacts as\nwell. Magna has been an incredible community partner, supporting many of our\nlocal charities through the Magna Hoedown. This annual event has raised over\n$13 million of much needed funds for hundreds of charities. Through its Magna\nin the Community organization, Neighbourhood Network, Magna has shown a strong\ncommitment to building a better community.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since his election in\n2018, Mayor Mrakas says he has been able to sit down with Magna executives to\n\u201cget a sense of what is needed to keep them\u201d in Aurora and \u201cmake Aurora as\nattractive as possible for businesses to see our community as a place where\nthey can build, and grow, and thrive. Now, I am optimistic that companies will\nsee Aurora the way I do and will consider making an investment in their future\nby coming to or staying in Aurora.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ahead of Wednesday\u2019s\nlunch, Mayor Mrakas promised a \u201cbig announcement\u201d but, at the last minute, this\nannouncement was postponed, pushed to the weeks ahead. He was mum on any\npossible teasers on what the announcement might entail, but said \u201cit is a very\nexciting time for Aurora.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But there are also\nsome challenges ahead, some of which were addressed to the Mayor following the\nspeech in a question and answer session led by Sandra Ferri, Executive Director\nof the Aurora Chamber of Commerce.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here, Ms. Ferri\npressed Mayor Mrakas on what he attributes the cause of so many storefront\nvacancies along the Yonge Street corridor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI have always said\nwe haven\u2019t invested in our own community and we\u2019re starting to do that,\u201d he\nsaid. \u201cThrough the Library Square project, through the Armoury. Library Square\nis a $51-, $52-million project. We, as a Town, are investing in our own\ncommunity and that says a lot to the development community and other\nbusinesses; if someone is looking to invest their hard-earned dollars into our\ncommunity and we\u2019re not willing to invest in it\u2026I am hearing a lot [from] the\ndevelopment community they\u2019re looking to come in now because they see us taking\naction and making decisions.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The future of Library\nSquare, he stressed, was not contingent on grant funding from the upper levels\nof government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe grants are a bonus,\u201d he said. \u201cIf it happens, we get it, it\u2019s great. We have the money, we have the Hydro Reserve funds. We sold a Town asset (Aurora Hydro) and those funds were earmarked for creating a Town asset and that\u2019s what we\u2019re doing. As much as we would love to get the grants\u2026I am going to fight tooth and nail to make sure we get that money, those grants, but at the end of the day, the Town has the assets to be able to develop this project and it\u2019s the right time, the right place to develop this project for the Town. It is only going to mean bigger and better things for our Town through economic development and our business communities.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mayor Tom Mrakas has reaffirmed his efforts to keep Magna\u2019s headquarters in Aurora. Mayor Mrakas outlined ongoing talks between his office and Magna, one of the Town\u2019s largest employers, at the annual Mayor\u2019s Luncheon, hosted by the Aurora Chamber of Commerce on Wednesday afternoon. Nearly 250 Chamber members, dignitaries and residents at large came out […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":26042,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26052","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/2020-02-27-01.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-6Mc","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-21 13:11:19","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26052","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26052"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26052\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26042"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26052"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26052"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26052"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}