WINDSOR STADIUM IN LIMBO
Landmark requires $7M in repairs
Windsor’s mayor says he will not push his long-standing offer to take over decaying Windsor Stadium after public school board trustees this week took no action on a sobering $7-million repair estimate.
“I think there’s no secret in the way I feel about Windsor Stadium and my interest in wanting to see that space developed in a different way, but I respect the position of the school board,” Drew Dilkens said, responding to the board’s response on Tuesday to the report that details a long list of required fixes for the 91-year-old landmark.
Dilkens has said the city would have to own the property — used as a community football venue for generations and as home field for Kennedy Collegiate — before it got involved with a long-needed rejuvenation.
Last fall, he repeated an offer he made several years ago to take over the languishing property, to make it a “great space” for football and soccer, and work out a deal so Kennedy could continue using it. Taking possession of the stadium would also allow the city to “reactivate” Jackson Park’s 60-year-old bandshell, which has gone unused for 20 years partly because of it’s landlocked position facing the Windsor Stadium fencing.
That vision still remains, as far as the mayor is concerned.
“I certainly see the benefit of incorporating that into Jackson Park and creating a great space for the community, but it’s not my space to make that decision,” he said this week.
School board chairman Ron Leclair said that while the board decided to take no action on Windsor Stadium this week, “we’re interested in any community partners who want to come forward with proposals that meet the needs of our students and is a good fit for our board.”
But he also said the board wants to continue to own the property.
“It is a gem, it was a gem and it has the potential to be returned to that status.”
He said trustees are now trying to digest the financially challenging report.
“It’s actually a bit startling,” said trustee Alan Halberstadt, who had called for the report with hopes of saving the historic stadium. “We knew it needed work, but if you go through that assessment, it needs a lot, lot of work.”
The report cites: crumbling concrete with exposed rebar and rotting wood in the stands; corroded steel doors; plumbing and lighting that need complete replacement; a snack bar that must be demolished; and a track that’s overgrown and the wrong geometry to host big meets. It would cost $115,000 to make the property safe and secure, but a “rejuvenation” would cost $7 million. That includes a new eight-lane track and other trackand-field amenities, a rehabilitated field house, washroom reconstruction and a $936,000 turf field for football and soccer.
“In order to come back to life, it needs some major investment,” said Halberstadt, who noted $3 million could be shaved off the price by eliminating the track.
Leclair said it would not be advisable for the board to spend $7 million “in short order” to rehab the stadium, but a longer-term fix, or finding a community partner to help, are possibilities.
“Yes, we’d like to keep it for our students and our board for our use, but there’s a lot of time that stadium’s available for use if we restore it,” he said. “So if there’s a partner out there who sees a vision and wants to come on board, we can work together and bring it back to its former glory.”
The school board tried about seven years ago to work out a deal to have AKO Fraternity renovate, maintain and operate the stadium on a 20-year lease, but that arrangement never materialized.