Windsor firm creates Disney activity books in braille
Plan is to use vacant space as parents have called for more activities for kids
A group of investors headed by a local doctor wants to create a children’s museum in vacant office space at the corner of Giles Boulevard and McDougall Street. “Windsor needs something,” Dr. Joel Liem said Monday after leaving city council’s development and heritage standing committee, which unanimously recommended the zone change necessary for the new museum. ACJJL Investments intends to put it into the part of the building that has been vacant for years.
Half the building is currently rented by the United Way. The plan is to keep United Way as a tenant and use the rest of the building, about 10,000 square feet, for the museum, Liem’s lawyer Jeffrey Slopen said.
He said the expectation is that local schools would be the biggest users of the new museum, targeted at young kids between kindergar- ten and Grade 3.
Many parents have called for more activities for kids. Slopen said the new children’s museum will be modelled after the one in London, Ont., and will attract travelling exhibitions. “Frankly, it’s a civic benefit at no cost to the municipality,” he told the committee. “We expected it will be heavily used and be an asset to the community.”
Few details were available about the museum. Liem said it’s very early in the planning stages. The building has been the home of United Way since 2000 and has a lease until 2025. United Way representatives told committee members of their concerns about parking, child safety in the parking lot and the many potential uses for the building if it was rezoned as an entertainment facility. It could become a bowling alley, arcade or a pool hall, they worried. Slopen said his clients, who are in the process of buying the building, had no problem with a more restrictive provision so that only a museum could be added to the property’s potential uses. “This is a very altruistic development in every respect,” Slopen said.
City staff will also look into the way school buses can be accommodated on the property, which has 90 parking spaces. Council still has to endorse the committee’s recommendation.