From dairy maker to marine trainer: The evolution of Port Hawkesbury's Ocean Innovation Centre

The backers of a marine-themed development centre on the Port Hawkesbury, N.S., waterfront hope new tenants will turn the onetime dairy operation into a beehive of ocean activity. 

The building was home to the Port Hawkesbury Creamery during the first half of the 1900s. It later served as a hardware store, a community centre, a performance venue and a candy factory before sitting idle for a decade.

Since 2020, the town and the Cape Breton Partnership have run the former creamery building as the Ocean Innovation Centre. The Nova Scotia Community College Nautical Institute hosts marine training classes in the building, and officials with NSCC, the town and the partnership are all aiming for new tenants to further develop the possibilities for the marine sector in the Strait of Canso and beyond. 

The COVID-19 pandemic stalled plans for NSCC marine training to locate in the Ocean Innovation Centre. However, since 2021, the college has set up a 24-seat classroom, change rooms and lockers, a lunchroom, washrooms and office space within the building. 

Close to 300 Nautical Institute students have done a significant portion of their training at the centre over the past four years, according to Vivek Saxena, principal of the NSCC Strait Area Campus, which includes the institute.

"This particular space helps us to get those students trained while they are in that area, so they don't have to come to the campus for the training and then go there for the practical," said Saxena.

The NSCC principal, who headed up the Nautical Institute prior to his current post, also feels the Ocean Innovation Centre offers visibility to those with an interest in working on the water.

"People see the students getting trained and resuming their training in public as people are going by on the water," Saxena said. "And when people come into the building and they see what the marine training is, it definitely helps us promote careers at sea as a whole."

'A huge advantage,' says Port Hawkesbury mayor

With green hydrogen and offshore wind projects taking shape in the Strait of Canso, Port Hawkesbury's mayor and other backers feel the Ocean Innovation Centre could attract the type of tenants that could make the facility a renewable energy leader. 

"It's not just something that's unique to the Strait or Nova Scotia — it's a national opportunity," said Mayor Brenda Chisholm-Beaton, pointing to a $600-million hydrogen-export program between Canada and Germany that was announced at the centre this past summer.

"I think it's going to be a huge advantage."

In the meantime, as the centre's stakeholders prepare a strategy for the building, Cape Breton Partnership CEO Tyler Mattheis feels marine-driven developers in Port Hawkesbury and the surrounding area can take ownership of the building and make it their own.

"The town of Port Hawkesbury is a strategic location, and they have really innovative, smart people. And sometimes they're making their products and their processes in their basements, or perhaps independently," said Mattheis. 

"And to have a place where they can go and connect with their supports … they don't have to leave Port Hawkesbury. They can access those tools here and then have a space to expand on that product at the Ocean Innovation Centre."