The future of the Kin Club of Preston is up in the air as the $29 million project to expand the Preston Memorial Auditorium moves toward breaking ground later this year.
As many in the community found out for the first time last week, the project will require demolition of the neighbouring Kinsmen Centre in favour of parking, due to restrictions on the small site.
The property is limited by Hamilton Street to the north, a ravine to the south and east, and the region’s Preston wastewater plant to the west. The scope of the work will require two other buildings on the property, located at 1414 and 1458 Hamilton St. to also be demolished.
At last week's public budget delegation meeting, board members from the Preston Figure Skating Club, which shares the Kinsmen Centre with the Kin Club, requested the demolition be deferred, if not stopped altogether, until other options are considered.
During Thursday's budget meeting, however, Shane Taylor, project lead for the City of Cambridge said to date the city has spent $328,000 on the project's design and is ready to enter the site plan approval phase. It is tentatively set to go to tender in June.
Members of the Kin Club told CambridgeToday they had signed a one year, month-to-month lease in November of 2021 to stay in their current location at 1400 Hamilton St. during a time when their financial situation had taken a hit due to a lack of revenue caused by COVID-19 restrictions.
As restrictions began to ease and rentals improved, the club went into a meeting in July with City of Cambridge staff centred around what they thought would be a new five-year lease and upgrades to the facilities HVAC system, only to be told their lease was being terminated and they were to be out by the end of March, president Sylvia Wagner says.
“At the beginning we were involved in all the meetings regarding the Preston Auditorium expansion,” Wagner said.
“During all the planning meetings we always thought that our building would be left. We we’re on the conference call with them and they told us our lease was going to be terminated.”
Aside from the replacement of the furnace, the hall also has a leaky roof that would need repair.
Heading into that July meeting, there was no indication that their lease was in jeopardy, Wagner says.
“We we’re completely blindside,” she said.
“We had no idea they were even considering taking down this building.”
Club treasurer Melissa Whetham was also in on all the meetings with the city and was under the impression their space was safe during the expansion.
“We were initially involved and then suddenly we stopped getting invited to the meetings,” she said.
“We understood that nothing was going to be touched here. Losing the building is going to be a very big hit. Our club has been around for 79 years.”
Both Wagner and Whetham attended the public budget delegations on Feb. 9 to discuss their concerns with city council.
Their goal going into the meeting, much like the figure skating club, was to convince councillors and the city to reconsider the tear down of the building as they see it as a much needed community facility.
“We rent this hall out at a reasonable price,” Wagner said.
“We do it for kids' first birthdays, celebrations and baby showers. A lot of people feel like it’s a community centre. A Cystic Fibrosis support group, the Cambridge Canada Day celebration group, among others, come here and we don’t charge them. We rent it out to be self-sustainable and so it doesn’t impact the money we raise for charity.”
Taylor addressed the club’s hall as part of his presentation to council during the budget and audit committee meeting Thursday.
He noted that city council had amended staff recommendations on the seating capacity to add an additional 250 seats to the new arena during a Schematic Design approval meeting on July 19, which added to the square footage of the building and requires an additional 50 parking spaces.
The HVAC and roof issues at the Kin Club would also have required funding from city reserves.
“In order to carry out council’s direction provided to staff at the final council approval meeting and due to the additional square footage and parking requirements, demolition of all three outparcel buildings is required,” Taylor said.
“City staff, under delegated authority, issued an eviction motion as quickly as possible following schematic approval on July 25, 2022 to the Kin Club of Preston."
Since that meeting, an alternative proposal has been made to the club, Taylor said.
“Recognizing the impact the demolition will have, staff immediately started searching out a reasonable option for a temporary location during construction,” he said.
“Staff also discussed with the club whether there would be interest in using the new Preston auditorium for their programming moving forward once construction is complete.”
Providing priority access to a multi-purpose room for regular meetings and other needs, along with bookable access to other amenities within the new auditorium were a part of Taylor's presentation.
Overall, discussions with he club have seemed positive, he says.
If everything proceeds as planned, the expansion should be complete within the next few years.
“If we stay on the current track, we are expecting to be wrapping up construction somewhere in the summer of 2025 with fresh new ice ready to go for the fall 2025 ice sport season,” he told council, adding he's “at a very big project milestone,” ready to begin the formal planning process on the arena expansion.
Specifications and drawings are also being compiled to bring the project to the tender stage in June, he said.
His goal has been to move forward with an appropriate recommendation that addresses “as many deliverables as feasible under the constraints.”
“This project was always going to be an exercise in compromise in one way or another,” Taylor said
As for a temporary location, discussions are ongoing for the Kin Club to use a portion of the main floor of the Preston Scout House on Queenston Road.
With another budget deliberation meeting scheduled for Feb. 21, it’s a wait and see approach for the Kin Club.
“You’d rather demolish a building that is used and thought of as a community centre, for parking?” Wagner said were her last words to council at last week's meeting.
“We don’t have enough of these spaces already.”
