Waterfront fire sale
Why does the City of Hamilton want to sell the Discovery Centre?
You may have visited the single-storey building when it was the Marine Discovery Centre. Or, when it became the restaurant Sarcoa (the owners are now suing the city for $15 million over a breach of contract). Or, maybe you’ve attended a public meeting in one of its meeting rooms, or the 75seat theatre off the lobby. Perhaps you’ve admired it from the outside as you’ve walked along the water’s edge.
Whatever your personal experience with the award-winning building, you have to admit that its location is spectacular, sitting on the northernmost edge of Hamilton’s waterfront, overlooking the bay across to the tree-lined shores of Burlington to the north, and to the High-Level Bridge to the west and Cootes Paradise beyond.
We own this 19,000-square-foot building and the six acres of land on which it sits, including the parking lot. The federal government transferred ownership to the city in 2015. We paid nothing for it. Since then, either through bad management, bad luck or bad implementation, or a combination of all three, the building has never lived up to its potential. Now, as a result of a motion in January by Mayor Fred Eisenberger, seconded by Ward 2 Coun. Jason Farr, who is also the chair of the Hamilton Waterfront Trust, the city included the building in a potential deal with a yet-to-be-named private developer. It’s something the city calls “right of first negotiation for the purchase of” which means they’ll sell it to a developer if the price and the plan are right. Council voted unanimously to consider selling the building.
The question is, why? Why sell a publicly-owned, 15-year-old building that sits on a genuinely unique piece of land? It should be a showplace. Instead, council views it as a building we don’t need to own or operate, despite the existence of the arms-length (albeit a very short arm) Hamilton Waterfront Trust (HWT) that’s paid to operate Hamilton’s waterfront facilities. In addition to Coun. Farr,
two other councillors sit on the minuscule HWT board — Tom Jackson and Doug Conley.
Some Hamiltonians, I’m one of them, have suggested keeping the building and land in public hands and to think of it as a mixed-use building, possibly including a neighbourhood library and daycare and City of Hamilton Museum and public meeting rooms (including room for seniors), possibly even an aviary. Just a few ideas that would keep the building in public hands. After all, once this genuinely unique building is sold, Hamiltonians no longer control its future. Which means you and your kids may not have access to it.
Some of these questions and ideas were shared at a public meeting convened by the planning department that attracted over 100 residents. It was a contentious meeting, prompting Coun. Farr to promise to hold a public meeting to gather input about potential public uses of the Discovery Centre. It took him two months of weekly reminders to schedule the meeting he promised.
Problem is, the winning bidder of
the Pier 8 development competition is to be announced on June 6, just two days after Farr’s public meeting on the 4th. Remember that “right of first negotiation for the purchase of”? Well, the winning bidder has a chance to buy the building if council agrees to sell it to them. For me, that puts the councillor’s sincerity regarding public input into question. It took Farr two months to schedule a meeting, but somehow he’s going to compile, assess, prioritize, and investigate ideas from the public in less than 48 hours and present them to his colleagues on council for their consideration. And they wonder why many of us are suspicious of their motives.
If you want to help keep the Discovery Centre in public hands, for yourself and for your grandchildren, please consider attending the meeting on Monday, June 4, at 6:30 p.m. at the Discovery Centre. There’s plenty of free parking, at least until the city sells the building.
Graham Crawford is a critical optimist who loves his city.