Kitchener aims to revive long-standing plan to redevelop Rockway Centre
The City of Kitchener is looking to move ahead with plans to redevelop the Rockway Centre, a process that was originally launched 11 years ago.
The facility on King Street East, near Sheldon Avenue, is the city’s only dedicated older adult centre.
Originally built in 1950 as a trolley bus transit terminal, the centre requires repairs and lacks basic amenities often found in other community centres, such as accessible washrooms, a gym, storage space and change rooms, a report notes.
Following public protests in 2010 when the city floated the idea of closing the centre and dispersing programming for seniors elsewhere across the city, council asked staff in 2013 to begin the request for proposals process to see the centre reborn.
Now, with $6 million available for the project in the 2024-25 capital budget, the city is looking to revive the dormant process; this week, councillors voted to pursue a three-phase strategy to find a development partner to build a new centre.
This would include issuing a request for information from potential partners, community engagement, and a new request for proposals; staff think this could be done by the middle of next year.
The plan still needs formal approval at an upcoming council meeting. “This has been a lengthy journey getting here, but one that I know our older adults are very passionate about,” said Mayor Berry Vrbanovic.
A 2019 update to the city’s Leisure Facilities Master Plan recommended a public-private partnership that could see the Rockway Centre incorporated in a larger residential building that could have other possible tenants, such as retail or medical/dental.
Even as a new Rockway Centre would continue to be a dedicated hub for older adult programming, those programs and services will continue to expand at other city facilities across Kitchener to serve a growing senior population, noted deputy chief administrative officer Michael May.
While early plans focused on redeveloping Rockway at its current location, the city says user groups it has consulted are open to the idea of a different nearby location, if that presents a better opportunity.
May said the city has been “much more deliberate this time in building positive, trusting relationships” with users and stakeholders — an effort to avoid a return of the placard-waving and council chamber-filling protests of 2010.
Advantages in seeking a different location include allowing the existing facility to remain open while a new one is built, giving the city the option of selling the current site once a new one is ready, possibly located closer to the light rail transit line.
The existing building was listed on the city’s municipal heritage register in 2013, but it is not designated under the Ontario Heritage Act.