Province provides $8.95M to finish francophone centre

The province has come to the rescue of a problem-plagued project to turn an old school in Ottawa’s west end into a francophone community service centre, promising $8.95 million in funding.

That’s enough to finish construction at the former Grant School. The heritage building on Richmond Road has become a target for both vandals and irate neighbours upset that the school still sits empty seven years after it was turned over to the non-profit group Centre Multiservices Francophone de l’Ouest d’Ottawa (CMFO).

The French-language public school board is now also a partner in the “community hub” project. Plans call for a French high school for adults, a new gym and a daycare. Other services are being determined, but could include health care run by the Montfort Hospital, classrooms for the French-language college La Cité, space for the anti-poverty group Cooperative Ami Jeunesse, employment and training programs, legal and immigration services, cultural and social activities and summer camps for kids, said CMFO spokesperson Ronald Bisson.

“I’m very, very happy, very thrilled. It’s an important day for Ottawa west. A new institution is born. It will be on a solid financial basis, and I know that over the years it will be a home for thousands of people who will use these services.” Construction on the project had been halted after the CMFO ran out of money.

The infusion of cash announced Friday brings the total amount spent by the province and the city on the project to $15.146 million.

There’s still one hitch, though: the city must agree to allow the transfer of Grant School to the French school board for $1.

That’s because the city originally bought the surplus Grant School for $1.94 million to be developed by CMFO. Under the new scheme, the school board will own the building instead and the community groups will be tenants.

The president of the Frenchlanguage school board, Linda Savard, said city approval is a “rubber stamp.” The city has no reason to oppose the project, she said.

“Now that we have secured the money, now that (the school board) is involved and everything seems to be going forward, the project is a go. I don’t foresee any problem with the municipality.”

Architectural plans have been done and building permits are in place, Savard said. She said construction inside the school and demolition of the old annex attached to it could begin in the next few weeks. The school board is negotiating with the city to buy the rear portion of the site at market value in order to construct a gym there, Savard said. She said she hopes the francophone centre will be up and running by the fall of 2018.

Coun. Mark Taylor said the project will go to the city’s finance and economic development committee, and then to council for approval.

Making the school board the landlord instead of the non-profit group is an “administrative tweak,” he said. “The project still fulfils all of council’s original intent. Council wanted this space to become a francophone community hub operated for the benefit of the larger community, and that’s still what will happen.”

Bisson said he recognizes that some neighbours of Grant School are upset with the delays or opposed the project. But he’s confident they will be more supportive once the centre is built. “It’s not a 20-storey highrise, it’s not a noisy thing. I think neighbours will be very pleased.

“At the end of the day, we still have to be neighbours, and that’s my approach, How can we still be neighbours with different opinions?”

Neighbour Graham Patterson said he was open-minded about the project at first, but as the years passed he concluded it’s a fiasco that should be abandoned.

A provincial election is coming in the spring, and the funding announcement is “crass opportunism by politicians,” said Patterson. “This is another waste of money, an attempt by (Premier) Kathleen Wynne to reach out and corral a couple of extra votes.”

Roland Reebs, who lives in a house on a street near the school and owns another on the same street, said Grant School should be handed back to the city and sold.

CMFO has displayed “goodwill but extreme ineptitude,” he said. The group failed to submit business plans on time, changed plans about what services would be provided (plans for a long-term care home and co-op housing were dropped), failed to raise $2 million from private donations as initially promised, and oversaw a project plagued with delays and rising costs, he said.

“They just stumbled along,” but it doesn’t seem to matter, said Reebs. “Lo and behold, it all works out” — courtesy of more money from taxpayers, he said.

The provincial money should be spent on more pressing issues, such as crumbling infrastructure, the poverty that drives an increasing number of people to food banks or development of alternative energy, he said.

“I think this is a project for more affluent times.”

It’s an important day for Ottawa west. A new institution is born. It will be on a solid financial basis, and I know that it will be a home for thousands of people who will use these services.