It is likely the biggest decision this version of Belleville city council has made so far in its four year mandate, and the decision will change the downtown for decades to come.
This afternoon (Monday) at its regular meeting council voted to accept the proposal from local firm TaskForce Engineering to redevelop the Memorial Arena and Royal Canadian Legion properties.
The properties will be sold to TaskForce for $900,000.
TaskForce would have an indoor concourse with a market place on the ground floor of the Memorial with a retail/business area on the second floor, along with a mezzanine open to the concourse below. The plan also called for 20 to 24 affordable housing units in the Legion building with a focus on accommodation for seniors.
The company says it would take two to three years to complete the project.
All on council thanked the public for their input, and there were thousands of comments on the issue from the public, both in person, in writing, and online.
All council members stressed the high quality of all four of the proposals and said it was a very difficult decision to make.
Both councillor Malette and Mayor Panciuk praised the proposal from RMS Canada Holding Inc. which proposed a market along with two apartment buildings featuring over 200 apartments. However, it was felt that too much of the Memorial Arena, including the Opportunity Shop would have to be destroyed and that the proposal wouldn’t fit in in that particular location.
However Panciuk said “we want to do business with RMS. There are other locations in the city that would be perfect for this kind of development.”
The boutique motel proposal for the Legion building was also seen as a good idea and developer Gurcham Cheema was urged to continue looking at Belleville because such a facility was urgently needed around the downtown.
The Memorial Village proposal from Peter Knudsen and Sean McKinney was also praised and both men were honored as “great community builders” with whom council was looking forward to doing business again.
See the proposal from Taskforce Engineering here.
