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SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
The search for operators of the GNWT's two diamond plants on 'Diamond Row' has ended.

After a campaign aimed at finding buyers in the diamond polishing business for the Arslanian Cutting Works and Polar Ice cutting and polishing factories, the task of selling the assets is now in the hands of the Department of Public Works and Services, which has listed the properties through Coldwell Banker at $950,000 each.

"The value is the building itself, the four walls, the roof, the foundation," said Brian Nagel, director of infrastructure operations.

Nagel added some of the equipment in the factories will likely be sold at auction.

The Department of Industry, Tourism, and Investment had launched a secondary diamond industry promotional website last September, issuing a request for qualifications to operate the factories and received proposals, but was not confident that the interested parties had the financial capacity or experience to operate the factories, said Pietro de Bastiani, associate director of the mineral, oil and gas division.

The process was part of a broader campaign to draw interest in the territory's secondary diamond industry, not necessarily tied to the factories.

"Frankly, we don't want to fetter the hands of investors to tell them where they should set up their operations," de Bastiani said. "We say we want you to establish your operation in the Northwest Territories - where exactly, that's their job.

"If we can secure some new manufacturing operations here to compliment Crossworks' operation - which is still viable and doing well here - then I think people in the North will be well-served."

The only diamond manufacturer in the territory, Vancouver-based Crossworks opened in Yellowknife in 2008, and spokesperson Dylan Dix said the company is open to more companies joining the market.

"There is potential for others to be successful like Crossworks and we would welcome other manufacturers to the NWT," Dix told Yellowknifer in an e-mail. "Diamond manufacturing requires innovative thinking wherever you are located, and I believe that is a major part of our success."

While Crossworks' plant is located downtown, the former hub of diamond cutting was nicknamed "Diamond Row" after the Department of Transportation started leasing out airport-side land to the diamond mines and the diamond cutting and polishing industry in the mid-1990s.

Mayor Gord Van Tighem said there was much debate at the time because some in the community thought the industry would be better-suited for other industrial and commercial development areas, and the airport area better-suited for air services.

Sorting and evaluating facilities, owned by the diamond mines, still remain in the Archibald Street area.

One of the three diamond factory buildings on Diamond Row now houses expediting company Matrix Aviation Solutions Inc., and de Bastiani said because the remaining facilities are also located at the Yellowknife airport, they are "prime locations for somebody involved in air-related activities."

The other two factories were wrestled from the liquidated assets of Polar Ice Diamonds - the former owner of both facilities - after the company went into receivership, while still owing more than $42 million to creditors, including $5.8 million to the territorial government.

The government has learned lessons from its involvement in the secondary diamond industry and the manufacturers considering establishing operations in the territory now are proposing "real businesses, and its their money that they're putting at risk; not the taxpayers'," de Bastiani said.

Despite the lack of interest in Diamond Row, the department is aware of five diamond manufacturers with international operations, including an especially promising European-based global player that may want to set up shop here, de Bastiani said, and challenges such as labour and operation costs in the North are not deterring them.

"We're quite encouraged with what people are proposing," he said. "They don't see Yellowknife necessarily as big a challenge as maybe we do, it's a matter of having that business acumen and experience.

"We're not going to supplant Mumbai as the cutting centre but I think with lessons learned and what we have on offer, I think - as the Brits would say - 'the future of diamonds is brilliant.'"

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