Work on the Grand Trunk renewal project continues to inch closer but, as said many times before, it will be a multi-year, if not a multi-decade project.
At the most recent ad hoc Grand Trunk renewal committee meeting on July 15, the draft work plan and guiding principles for the project was presented to the committee by Joani Gerber, CEO of investStratford, on behalf of Emily Robson, corporate initiative lead with the city, who has taken the lead on steering the plan. Gerber said that much of the work will be done at the staff and city level, but the working groups are expected to contribute. What has been created, essentially, is a list of high level results assigned to each working group, with tasks listed for each of the working groups. She added that the intention is to have some tangible things for the committee, for city council, and by extension the wider community, to be engaged with and help move the project forward.
Finalizing vision and guiding principles, site analysis and environmental assessment, developing key partnership models, communications and community engagement, procurement and RFP processes and structuring legal agreements, financial and real estate modelling, analysis of economic, environmental, and social impact, and government relations are the key goals in the plan. Ultimately, the results the group wants to see as a result of the work plan are:
• A final draft of the vision and guiding principles endorsed by the committee and council and incorporated into procurement documents.
• Recommendations on an additional site assessment, for approaches to carbon neutrality provided and a complete internal formal consultation on the site.
• The establishment of a formal agreement for the construction and operation of a community recreation/amenity facility, including the programming of space and high-level design.
• The activation of the site through place-making interventions.
• A council-endorsed strategy for land disposition and development partner selection.
• Development scenarios articulated and the preferred model endorsed by council.
• An impact analysis provided to inform development scenarios and recommendations on preferred models.
• The determination of the best opportunities for collaboration and government relations priorities set.
“We’re going to set some … I would say aggressive timelines and dates to some of these things,” Gerber said. “We may not meet them all.”
At the August 12 council meeting, the committee wants to provide the work plan for consideration. At the September 9 meeting, the committee wants council to consider the final vision and guiding principles, while at the council meeting on October 15, the committee wants council to consider the key partnership model. Then, at the November 25 meeting, the committee wants council to consider its recommendations for the site.
“This is a living, breathing document,” Gerber said. “It's not something that's going to get stuck on a shelf, it is also not set in stone. So there will be things that will come up over the course of the next 30 days, three months, three years, that will be added and taken away from this work plan. But this is what we have so far.”
After Gerber presented the plan at the meeting, Mayor Martin Ritsma also gave a brief update on a meeting he had just that morning. Ritsma shared that he had met with several individuals from the federal level nearly a year ago, including Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre and MP Scott Aitchison, shadow minister of housing and diversity, where he spoke about the Grand Trunk project.
“And Scott said at one point, ‘so you are the city with 18 acres in the middle of it?’ and I said ‘yes, we are,’” he said.
Then, just the week prior to the latest committee meeting, Ritsma received a phone call from MP John Nater telling him that Aitchison was going to be in Stratford and would like to meet at the site.
“So we had a wonderful meeting today on site and talked about many things about the history of the locomotive shops, we talked about current parking, and different aspects of the project," Ritsma said. "He was really intrigued with our transit hub and where it stood and how that fits with monies, grant monies that might flow with regards to housing and proximity to transit hubs. But most importantly … he encouraged us to continue that work is funding that could be connected to infrastructure, because whatever we put there will require infrastructure.”
Connor Luczka is a Local Journalism Initiative reporter with the Stratford Times. The LJI is a federally-funded initiative.
