GREENHOUSES IN DISREPAIR
New proposal for Lanspeary Park
The 92-year-old municipal greenhouse complex in Lanspeary Park is in such decrepit condition it would cost $1 million more to fix it than to build anew in Jackson Park, according to a city staff report.
Total cost for a new “state-ofthe-art” greenhouse facility in the southeast corner of Jackson Park is $6.6 million, compared to $7.6 million to refurbish the nine Lanspeary greenhouses, whose rotting wood and shifting glass pose safety concerns for the people working inside them. Their life expectancy, according to a new report going to council Monday, ranges from two to 10 years. Seven of the nine will last five years or less.
Both the Jackson Park and Lanspeary Park proposals include doubling the current size of the greenhouse floors pace, from 11,000 to 22,000 square feet, to grow more plants in-house and avoid escalating prices in the private sector.
But the Lanspeary rejuvenation would only be good for about 20 years, would be less productive because the old layout would remain, and doesn’t allow for modern equipment like forklifts and trolleys, according to the report, which recommends the Jackson Park option.
Jan Wilson, the city’s executive director of recreation and culture, said she wasn’t shocked by the cost estimates for both greenhouse scenarios because she’s seen how the cost of construction is “skyrocketing ” these days. “It’s happening with all kinds of buildings,” she said. “Obviously, we hoped it was going to be smaller, but it is realistic.” What did surprise her was that the cost of rejuvenating Lanspeary would be higher than building a new greenhouse complex at Jackson Park.
“I didn’t expect that to come in that way, and the other challenge is (with the Lanspeary option), you’d lose an actual growing season,” said Wilson, referring to the fact that while Lanspeary is being rebuilt, the city would have to go out and buy all its product from private growers.
The city grows 75,000 specialty plants and perennials at its greenhouse complex, whose structures range in age from 10 to 90 years. In addition, it buys 200,000 annuals for use in 1,000 hanging baskets, 300 bridge planters and 1,000 self-watering planters in parks, business-improvement areas and boulevards. The cost of buying all this material each year was not available.
But the report says the city can grow its own for half the cost. And just finding product has become a challenge.
Many greenhouses are getting out of the business of growing flowers in favour of more lucrative products such as cannabis. Wilson noted that the city’s horticulture department needed $90,000 more this year to buy plant materials because of rising prices.
“We’re concerned we’re not even going to get the materials anymore at any cost,” said Wilson. “They ’re just getting harder and harder to source, and the harder to source, the higher the cost.
“And these are the things that really provide the colour in our displays, whether in our gardens or hanging baskets or bridge planters, and they really have a big impact.” The report is asking that council approve Jackson Park as the preferred option, but the final approval will be part of 2019 capital budget deliberations.
The private consultant hired to study the greenhouses and recommend solutions found major structural concerns with rotting and shifting walls; the risk of chemicals escaping through unsealed walls into the surrounding area; very low energy efficiency because the glass and wood frames no longer seal; and the wood frames are beyond repair, some requiring immediate replacement. The potential for shifting wood and glass presents safety concerns, the report says. Wilson said when there are safety concerns in the greenhouses, the city makes “Band-Aid” repairs to ensure staff are working in safe conditions, or uses the unsafe areas for storage instead of growing. “But as they deteriorate, eventually we’re not going to be able to do the Band-Aids and have to close off whole greenhouses,” she said. “You’re shrinking your ability just to sustain what we’re doing now.” Building a new greenhouse complex in Jackson Park would improve productivity because it could have plants stacked vertically and use a single building rather than multiple smaller greenhouses, the report says.
Noting that Ward 4 has a shortage of parkland, it recommends demolishing Lanspeary’s greenhouses and converting the 2.5-acre site into green space.
And because building a new complex in Jackson Park would require land currently used for a baseball diamond, the report recommends building a new diamond in a nearby park.
The cost of the $250,000 baseball diamond relocation and $328,500 demolition of the Lanspeary greenhouses is included in the total $6.6-million cost for the Jackson Park project.
The report says that one of the two options needs to be done quickly. If action is delayed, the existing facilities may need to undergo urgent and costly repairs. There’s also the potential for a major failure of a greenhouse — falling glass during after-hours in the winter — that could kill off plants and create a severe shortage for planters and baskets next season, the report notes.