Menu Close

June 2014 Update!!

Dear Friends of Kingston Inner Harbour,
 
EXPRESS YOUR VIEWS ON THE CITY’S TRANSPORTATION MASTER PLAN AND THE WELLINGTON STREET EXTENSION!
Monday, June 23, Memorial Hall, City Hall 6:30 pm
This is the City’s first public meeting about the newly revised Transportation Master Plan.Your voice matters. www.cityofkingston.ca/city-hall/strategies-studies-plans
 
UPDATE ON THE BAILEY BROOM COMPANY – 305 Rideau Street (north-east corner of Cataraqui and Rideau)
Having only been alerted by chance on Tuesday evening about the City’s demolition plans for this unique and iconic building, we have had to act extremely quickly.  Basically we want the City to delay the demolition to allow sufficient time for interested parties to come up with a business plan for repurposing the building.
Lots to report from a short flurry of activity. Laura Murray and colleagues have done an amazing job of finding out about the building.  They have learned that William Bailey moved his broom factory to this site around 1905 and commissioned one of Kingston’s most admired architects, William Newlands & Son, to build at least the office portion; Queen’s Archives has lovely drawings of it. The factory operated for about 20 years, putting out over 1500 brooms a day. We consider the building a very valuable and rare reminder of Kingston’s industrial past. To see these wonderful images, join the Save Kingston’s Waterfront! Facebook page.
Over the weekend, we collected over 200 letters in support of preserving this building and will deliver them to the Mayor tomorrow (Monday).
Heritage Committee meets tomorrow (Monday) and will have some discussion of this issue.
 If you haven’t yet written a letter, do consider conveying to Mayor and Council that they have an opportunity (especially with this new information of the heritage value of the building) to delay or cancel the demolition condition on the purchase of the land.  We need time to figure things out.
E-mails for Mark Gerretsen, Mayor, and Councillors Sandy Berg, Rick Downes, Kevin George, Bill Glover, Dorothy Hector, Rob Hutchison, Jim Neill, Lisa Osanic, Bryan Paterson, Brian Reitzel, Liz Schell and Jeff Scott: mgerretsen@cityofkingston.casberg@cityofkingston.ca,rdownes@cityofkingston.cakgeorge@cityofkingston.ca,bglover@cityofkingston.cadhector@cityofkingston.ca,rhutchison@cityofkingston.cajneill@cityofkingston.ca,losanic@cityofkingston.cabpaterson@cityofkingston.ca,breitzel@cityofkingston.calschell@cityofkingston.ca,jscott@cityofkingston.ca.
It would also be useful to e-mail Commissioners Lanie Hurdle and Cynthia Beach as well as Gerard Hunt the CEO:lhurdle@cityofkingston.cacbeach@cityofkingston.ca,ghunt@cityofkingston.ca.
Stay tuned: If a special council meeting is called, we will really need people to attend.
Sincerely hope that this issue can be resolved as a win-win.
And as always thanks so very much for your support.
Cheers,
Mary Farrar,                      
President,
Friends of Kingston Inner Harbour