When it comes to the proposed new downtown conference centre, the goal is to see shovels in the ground before the end of this Council term in 2026. We already know there are lots of meetings and conferences that would love to come to Kingston. These conferences will bring more visitors into the core of the city and more money into our local economy, helping support downtown businesses during times of the year when regular tourist traffic isn’t as high. All that’s missing is the right space to host them. This month, we took an important step closer to making the conference centre a reality.
There are six different proponents that have expressed interest in bidding on a conference centre redevelopment project. This month, City Council gave the green light to all six proponents to develop a detailed design for the redevelopment of the property as well as a business case for how a privately owned and operated conference space would work. In addition to the conference centre itself, the City is requiring a number of other features as part of the redevelopment of the site. These include a hotel, restaurant, ground floor commercial space, new housing, and a large public parking garage. In exchange, the City will provide the land, some funding towards the parking garage and various tax incentives, all with the goal of seeing a state of the art development here in the downtown core. Once the City receives the detailed design and business case proposals from each of the proponents, it will be up to Council to select the winning proponent. After that, it will just be a matter of getting the necessary planning approvals and permits before construction can begin. It’s exciting to see how this project will be part of the larger transformation of this whole area, helping to ensure a stronger, more vibrant downtown core for years to come.
One Response
Please don’t chose Patry Construction! He builds cheap buildings, doesn’t maintain them , ignore tenants, just ask people who live in his buildings, not a reputable builder in my opinion, would never live in one of his buildings again!