THE FIXER Neighbours are fed up with the hole thing
People who live around the Swansea Town Hall are starting to wonder if a big hole surrounded by a fence in front of the building has become a permanent fixture. The town hall, on Lavinia Ave., near Bloor St. and Windermere Ave., was the seat of local municipal government back when Toronto was still a patchwork of small towns. It now serves as a community centre that includes a branch of the Toronto library and a dental clinic.
For well over a year now, an ongoing effort to renovate and expand the uses of the building has been under way. Part of it was an expansion of the basement, which involved shoring work to the foundation that resulted in a big hole being dug near the front entrance. The work seemed to be going smoothly until this year, when it suddenly stopped. A fence went up around the excavation and the only progress made since is by weeds, some of which have attained the size of small trees.
People began complaining about it and, as a result, a fabric shrouding was installed just last Friday over the fence that surrounds the hole, to minimize the eyesore to the neighbourhood. STATUS: Ed Gaigalas, executive director of the town hall, said no work has been done where the hole has been dug since last February, when the contractor who won the city tender to do the work went broke. Since then, officials have been negotiating with the company that provided the performance bond posted by the contractor, which now has to pay someone else to finish the work. Those negotiations are mostly done, said Gaigalas, but the remaining work has to be retendered, meaning it won’t be finished any time soon. WHO’S TRYING TO GET IT FIXED: Ed Gaigalas, executive director, Swansea Town Hall; 416392-1954. ......................................................... What’s broken in your neighbourhood? Wherever you are in Greater Toronto, we want to know. To email us, go to thestar.com, click on the GTA tab, then click on The Fixer. Or call us at 416-869-4823.