New: Facebook has blocked all Canadian news. Join our mailing list to stay in the loop.

New: Facebook has blocked all Canadian news. Join our mailing list to stay in the loop.

Frontenac_Centre_Moves_Forward

Feature Article December 18

Feature Article December 18, 2002

LAND O' LAKES NewsWeb Home

Contact Us

Frontenac Centre plan moves forwardby Jeff Green

A proposed fifty-room resort with an artist retreat cultural component, has withstood a public meeting in Sharbot Lake last week, and has secured $4,000 each from Central and North Frontenac townships in order to move the concept study forward.

At the public meeting, centre proponents Brian Ritchie and Kathy Wood outlined the results of their research into the viability of such a project. The proposal, as it stands now, calls for the construction of an 80,000 sq. foot complex on a 100 plus acre site that includes the aforementioned resort and a dining facility, space for six artists to live and work for intervals of up to one year, a 150-seat auditorium and exhibition space, and other facilities. The design of the buildings and location of the proposed resort are still to be decided.

The assembled audience of about 30 people questioned various aspects of the plan, including the joint private/non-profit management structure that is envisioned in the 93 page concept study document prepared by Ritchie and Wood.

Brian Ritchie explained that a non-profit corporation would be able to attract grants and endowments in order to establish a facility to give promising artists coming out of arts schools throughout the country a place to further their development. The hotel and resort facilities would be best run under contract by a private, for-profit company, according to Ritchie.

Most of the concerns raised by the mainly sympathetic audience centred on two issues, the effect of such an enterprise on the social and physical environment of North and Central Frontenac, and questioning some of the assumptions about the number of local jobs that will be created in the construction phase of the proposed project.

Luthier Oskar Graf asked about the effect on the roads in the vicinity of whatever sight is chosen. If you can imagine the traffic coming in and out of the site that is chosen, if its on a back road somewhere, this could have a great effect. Kathryn Wood responded by saying, there is a provision in our financing plans for road reconstruction. But the general impact on the entire region of a project of this scale remained a concern for some at both the public meeting and at the subsequent Central Frontenac Council meeting.

North Frontenac Councillor Dick Hook, and Bob Pollard, who along with his wife runs the Lakeside Bed and Breakfast, were vociferous in their claims that a building project of $24 million, as is proposed, would not generate much, if any, local work or support for local business. A contract like this is going to go to large company, and there is no one in this area that can take this on. Whatever company gets the contract is going to bring in their own people and materials. There will be almost no spending locally for this, said Pollard.

Pollards view was echoed at the Central Frontenac council meeting this past Monday by councillor Marsden Kirk. Kirk told council he had avoided the public meeting. Based on the information I had, I did not want to go to a meeting in a negative frame of mind. He pointed out that the 93 page concept study that was passed out at the Mondays council meeting, was supposed to arrive 10 days earlier. All we received was an executive summary, and I fail to see how an executive summary could be prepared before the report itself is completed.

Kirk was further displeased by the request for $4,000 in additional funding. I think I have made my feelings clear before. I dont take kindly to having things thrown at me. I think they need to smarten up at the FMB. [The Frontenac Management Board (FMB) employs Ritchie as economic development officer for the three Frontenac Townships and the Kingston Islands.]

Mayor Bill MacDonald said the $4,000 request was being made in such a hurry only, because Brian Ritchie just recently heard he could leverage matching funding from the provincial government if he had approval before the end of December.

MacDonald then said, when I drive west on highway seven I see boarded up business all over the place. We were all elected to work for economic development, and we have to move forward with proposals for economic development.

In the end Kirk voted for the $4,000 expenditure, which was approved in a unanimous vote.

With the participation of the Government of Canada