Region HQ to get makeover for civic park, plaza
It’s a big, drab slab of grey right now perched back from traffic whizzing by on Sir Isaac Brock Way, but Niagara Region headquarters will soon be a welcoming place where people from all walks of life will be able to hang out, have picnics, enjoy festivals and even take in movie nights.
As part of the ambitious plan to transform an area of more than 320 hectares encompassing Brock University lands to the west, Glenridge Avenue down to Lockhart Drive to the north, the Glenridge Quarry and the interchanges of highways 406 and 58 to the east, land down to Lake Gibson that includes regional headquarters, Thorold city hall and property along Merrittville Highway and Highway 406 — known as the Brock District Plan — regional headquarters is about to get the mother of all makeovers.
The district plan, which could play a big part in shaping development in the area in the years to come, envisions creating a sustainable district that is walkable, friendly to pedestrians and cyclists, with beautiful streetscapes, open spaces, and mixed uses such as housing, retail and business to build a complete community.
The idea is to have components of the plan such as the Brock campus and regional headquarters — currently isolated from each other — integrated into a seamless, people-friendly district.
With gleaming chrome plated shovels in hand, regional dignitaries joined Mario Patitucci with landscape architecture firm Adesso Design to hold a ceremonial groundbreaking outside of regional headquarters last week for the civic park and international plaza.
Among them was Niagara Falls Coun. Selina Volpatti, chair of the Region’s planning and economic development committee, who was a prominent realtor.
“As we used to say in real estate, this building has very little curb appeal,” she said. “But that’s all going to change.
“When complete, it will become a beautiful and resilient public space for year-round gatherings, festivals, events and performances for residents, students and visitors to the area.”
The $2.3-million initiative, which could be phased in over a period of years, has been portrayed in drawings at the Region as a space where people including regional employees, workers from the surrounding area and many of the Brock students who live behind the property in the massive Lofts project are shown having picnics and tossing Frisbees.
“It’ll truly be a democratic space: it’s open to everyone,” Khaldoon Ahmad, manager of urban design and landscaping for the Region, said.
Plans call for the lion’s share of the work to be completed by Canada Day 2019, he said.
Mario Patitucci with landscape architecture firm Adesso Design, heading up the project, said the project will include elements such as an “orchard plaza” with flowering trees that previous reports have said are meant to represent Niagara’s bright and blossoming future, a pollinator garden where people can sit on benches, a revamped courtyard where functions could be held, a lawn area for picnics or other passive activities, pedestrian walkways and an international plaza where concerts or movie nights could be held. Plans have also called for a future Indigenous peoples plaza.
Regional Chair Alan Caslin said the headquarters transformation is a key part of the district plan that could unleash the full economic potential of the university a stone’s throw away to transform the area into a vibrant mixed urban use area.
“There’s a lot of people in this area, there’s 20,000 students in the area and they all require services,” he said in an interview.
“Great public spaces say a lot about a community and a reimagined … headquarters will offer a place where the community comes alive and people feel welcome,” he said in a news release.
Thorold Mayor Luciani, whose city the headquarters sits in, said the “stunning transformation” will be a wholesale change for the thousands of regional employees who toil away in the building in their cubicles.
“I know when it is done … staff will come out to a picnic bench with your laptops and produce more in one hour than you probably would in their stuffy offices at times. The vision you see here, everyone will enjoy.”
Region chief administrative officer Carmen D’Angelo said regional staff from numerous departments are working handin-hand on the transformation plan.
He asked people to imagine athletes competing in the 2021 Canada Summer Games that Niagara landed receiving their medals at the international plaza with their loved ones watching.
“It’s going to be spectacular,” he said.
D’Angelo said the innovative project is a testament to planning and development director Rino Mostacci’s ability to see the big picture.
“Rino is a visionary for Niagara,” he said. “Rino has that longterm vision lens. It’s invaluable.”
Mostacci said it’s the vision of regional staff. “It was a vision of that team to create a place for celebration of the region’s diversity, our welcoming spirit, and the community that we aspire to become,” he said.
But it also took buy-in from regional politicians, Mostacci said.
“Regional council is extremely supportive of the great work that staff do to bring forward these kinds of projects,” he said. “They’ve never wavered on opportunities to enhance the urban experience, to contribute to public spaces.”
Construction is scheduled to begin in earnest in the fall.