Friday's thick snowfall prevented a commemorative drive on the city's newest street, but the symbolic ribbon was cut on Boundary Road.
The long-awaited artery now connects Highway 16 to Highway 97 and also links Prince George's rail and airport transportation systems on a single route.
"This is another important brick in the foundation of the city Prince George will become," said local MLA Mike Morris, one of the many dignitaries who took part in the event. The Boundary Road project was seen as a major catalyst in the Western Canadian economy, so the federal and provincial governments also contributed funds to the infrastructure project.
"Opening Boundary Road is a significant milepost," said John Gibson, CEO of the Prince George Airport Authority. "It signals that Prince George is open for logistics development."
He added that the airport's refueling capabilities were only waiting for certification and the city's air centre would be ready for any sort of cargo or passenger flight the world might have in mind.
"It is up to us [in the private sector] now to draw business to Prince George."
The private sector individual most affected by the completion of the road, and responsible for the future business along the route, was thrilled by the ribbon-cutting. Henry Rempel owns Prince George Global Logistics, the company that bought up virtually every parcel of land along the road, consolidating the plans to build the structures needed by international cargo carriers to do business in this area. He said he would be installing the first of those buildings this coming spring.
"I want to construct Prince George Global Logistics Park from one end of Boundary Road to the other, on both sides," he said. "It will be such a benefit to the region. The City of Prince George has wanted Boundary Road since the 1970s, I found the old maps showing the route they hoped it would take all those years ago, and today it is almost exactly where they thought it would be. Everything about the road is built and paid for, so now we have to develop business for this city."
Rempel said he expected the logistics park, a set of interconnected warehouses, shops, and offices located near the airport to be about 2,000 acres in size. He was encouraged to see a similar one doing well in the Lower Mainland despite having only the airport as its main transportation link. Prince George, he said, has air, continental rail (connected to oceanic shipping), and two major highways to work with, plus significantly cheaper real estate costs.
