“Ding Dong the KED is dead!” a post on The Townehouse’s Facebook page read earlier this week after city council killed the long-proposed Kingsway Entertainment District project.
“As downtown Sudbury business owners we are so emotional and thrilled. Here's to keeping the arena downtown! Thank you to all the people who worked so hard to make this happen.”
This sentiment is very much shared by the Downtown Sudbury Business Improvement Area, co-chair Rob Jones told Sudbury.com this week, adding it’s “just nice to see logic coming to the forefront.”
The KED was a proposed municipal arena/events centre to be located on The Kingsway alongside a private hotel and casino. City council decided on the location in 2017, at which time a downtown-based project was also considered.
The Downtown BIA has long been of the opinion the city’s main arena operations should not shift from the city’s historic downtown core to a property on The Kingsway, and was one of the appellants in the Local Planning Appeal Tribunal case against the project.
“It’s nice to see the potential that it’s coming back downtown, because that’s where we logically always felt that it should be,” Jones said.
Although whatever incarnation of city council is elected Oct. 24 will determine how to proceed with a new arena, or if there’s an appetite to do so, Jones said killing the KED at least reopens the possibility of a downtown project.
Between The Refettorio (a planned outdoor theatre on Durham Street), Place des Arts (an arts and culture centre that opened earlier this year), the proposed Junction East Cultural Hub (library/art gallery project), Jones said there’s much already happening downtown.
“That’s a lot of public investment, and so we know for a fact based on what’s happening in other cities over the years, private investment will follow that kind of public investment,” he said. “Private money will want to invest in our downtown with all these projects happening downtown.”
The trend in recent years has been a shift from “sprawling infrastructure” toward “building up and building within density,” he said.
“We want to be part of that trend,” he said. “The idea of continuing to look to build brand new infrastructure, to me, doesn’t make much sense.”
Now that the KED is dead and the downtown-based Sudbury Community Arena will continue to operate as it has been for the past 70 years, Jones said the city appears to be on the right track.
“We are excited to wait and see what happens in the upcoming election,” he said. “The dust is still settling on this.”
His hope is that the city will now dust off the Downtown Sudbury Master Plan, which includes the proposed Elgin Street Greenway – a new linear park and multi-use pathway proposed for the southwestern side of downtown running the length of Elgin Street. According to the city’s website, the greenway is proposed to:
- Provide a beautiful new face to the downtown
- Buffer the downtown from the rail lands
- Rejuvenate the portion of the Trans-Canada Trail that runs through the downtown and
- Create a shared-use trail connecting the downtown to Ramsey Lake, the hospital and Laurentian University beyond
The Elgin Street Greenway is "technically on hold," said Ward 10 Coun. Fern Cormier, who represents the downtotwn area.
"The original version of that was dependent on some outside source funding … that wasn’t secured for it," he said, adding that although a "modest amount" has been allocated toward it, the project remains in holding pattern.
The Downtown Sudbury Master Plan, meanwhile, is undergoing an update to reflect current realities and city direction.
As for the downtown arena, Cormier said it will clearly require investment to remain viable into the long term.
"I think the decision going forward will be how to handle that, how to approach that. Do we go whole hog and see how much we can get done on the existing arena? I think that’s a reasonable starting point," he said.
“Between now and October is an opportunity to listen. There will be no shortage of ideas and opinions the next council will have available to them.”
It’s anticipated city council will receive a report by city administration during their next meeting in August highlighting what needs to be done to formally end their involvement in the KED. The city has approximately $90 million in debt secured and earmarked for the KED, of which more than $85 million is estimated to remain after expenses are factored in.
Tyler Clarke covers city hall and political affairs for Sudbury.com.
