Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board | ? | 2 fl | Complete

[calvinkool]

Originally Posted by realcity

And if the Board sells their head office to Mac we will not get any new taxes because neither pay taxes. O that already happened. Where is the good part again? The part that we're spending $10mil to get nothing in return. Or lose about as much as we gain, called zero sum gain. Nice investment.

The gain comes from the hundreds of new jobs created downtown, and the thousands of people the new facility will bring downtown every year, all spending money, all bringing new revenue to the city. This forum is filled with nothing but pessimism, anyone with an objective eye would see the new health campus as a positive for the core.

[Jon Dalton]

Originally Posted by calvinkool

The gain comes from the hundreds of new jobs created downtown, and the thousands of people the new facility will bring downtown every year, all spending money, all bringing new revenue to the city. This forum is filled with nothing but pessimism, anyone with an objective eye would see the new health campus as a positive for the core.

Calvin, I don't think anyone on the board is questioning the point you made. People are skeptical about the amount of money being spent by government to support this project. The question is not is a new health campus good for the core, but is it worth the investment. Or are there better ways we could be spending our money? An objective person would ask those questions, rather than simply cheerlead the project and cite the obvious reasons.

Personally, I want to see the health campus downtown, but for reasons that can't all be measured in dollars. It isn't simply an investment decision but it's about the moral obligation to serve all of our citizens equally. Downtown is the most commonly accessible location as it is geographically central and the end point of most transit routes. However, it isn't the city's sole responsibility to make sure this happens. McMaster and the provincial government should be equally committed to this goal, and not using it as a bargaining chip.

As far as economic development goes - getting people to come downtown and spend money - large, heavily funded government projects tend to fall short of expectations. Anyone who knows a bit of Hamilton history doesn't need to be reminded of the examples. We were led into massive expenditures precisely because of a lack of objectivity. Projects were assessed based on foregone conclusions and blind faith. If the dollars are supposed to produce results, this should be studied and affirmed based on evidence.

There are so many ways to revitalize downtown without handing large amounts of money to private organizations. We need to first make it easier for those who are already spending their own money to do their little part.

[SteelTown]

City, board meet on downtown education centre

http://www.thespec.com/news/local/ar...ucation-centre

A handful of public school board officials were brought up to speed Thursday about the city’s plan to keep the education centre downtown.

The city is reportedly narrowing its search for properties in the core, but most of the information about the sites is still shielded from the public. The board has stated that it plans to move to Hamilton Mountain at the site of the former Crestwood Secondary School.

After the last meeting between the city and school board, staff said that a second tower option at City Hall is still on the table.

The school board will be formally updated on the issue April 16.

[SteelTown]

Update:

There's four scenarios for the School Board to locate head office in downtown.

One strong scenario would have just office space in downtown and maintenance elsewhere, guessing Crestwood. The other strong scenario is having both office and maintenance in downtown.

All properties up for considerations are City own properties in the downtown area.

[mattgrande]

Do we know what the properties are, or is everything being done in camera, as usual?

[SteelTown]

In camera.

Way back when we had a facilitator for the stadium fiasco the facilitator listed all City properties. If I can search for it we can get a rough idea.

[SteelTown]

I've got the excel spreadsheet for City owned properties in Hamilton. Filtered it down to ward 2 only and greater than 0.99 area. That's down to 27 properties.

97 ST JOSEPHS DR
128 BARTON ST W
162 BARTON ST W
4 TIFFANY ST
PATTERSON ST
409 QUEEN ST S
405 HESS ST S
182 BARTON ST W
198 BARTON ST W
112 BARTON ST W
2 KING ST W
191 YORK BLVD
228 HESS ST N
74 ARKLEDUN AVE
9 PATRICK ST
YOUNG ST
85 MARY ST
377 FERGUSON AVE N
FERRIE ST E
231 FERGUSON AVE S
FERGUSON AVE S
110 KING ST W
239 CAROLINE ST N
607 JAMES ST N
69 MARY ST
56 CHARLTON AVE W
VICTORIA AVE S

[SteelTown]

A lot of that includes the West Harbour area, 239 CAROLINE ST N, 162 BARTON ST W, 128 BARTON ST W, 228 HESS ST N, 4 TIFFANY ST, etc.

[SteelTown]

The only interesting property I see is 191 YORK BLVD, which is Sir John A MacDonald's green space I believe.

[SteelTown]

Looks like the Ministry of Education (MOE) has approved the School Board and City's conditions and business case, whatever that is.

MOE has agreed to a partnership. If you remember the MOE denied the McMaster/Public Health/School Board proposal in the past.

[thomax]

It's official, the school board is moving to the mountain. Another epic fail for Hamilton. *sigh

http://www.cbc.ca/hamilton/news/stor...crestwood.html

[flar]

Boo, HWDSB, boo!

I also boo them for planning to close Delta. What will become of the building? Will they tear it down and build a car dealership or a Walmart? At least they aren't closing Westdale (yet...)

[flar]

Another rant, about school boards in general. Where's the planning? We seem to be in a constant cycle of building schools then closing them when the neighbourhood ages. Then young families start popping up in another area, a new school is built, the kids grow up and the school has to close. Meanwhile, in the old neighbourhood that lost all its schools, the old people die and new families move in, requiring schools again...

[LikeHamilton]

Hamilton school board jumps gun on city, decides to pull HQ out of downtown

Arial View. Aerial view of the Hamilton Wentworth District School Board's headquarter building. The board has decided to ignore city efforts to keep them downtown and will relocate to the Mountain. Kaz Novak/The Hamilton Spectator Source: The Hamilton Spectator
Richard Leitner
May 29, 2012
School board abandons search for downtown HQ site

Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board trustees have pulled the plug on their joint search with the city for a downtown headquarters site and will stick with their old plans to rebuild on the central Mountain.

Following a lengthy closed-door meeting that stretched until half past midnight on Monday, trustees returned to public session and voted 6-5 to withdraw from a joint city-board task force struck in February to explore potential locations in the core. Trustees did not debate or explain their decision in public.

The board will now proceed with original plans to build the $31.6-million headquarters at Crestwood school near Lime Ridge Mall, with demolition of the existing building there expected to start in July.

Board chair Tim Simmons said afterward a majority felt continuing the downtown search might jeopardize funding for the project as the province tries to rein in its deficit.

The Ministry of Education has already approved the Crestwood plan and Simmons said his colleagues felt a city proposal for a downtown site was “going to be too complicated” to prepare a case that could be easily compared to the original plan.

He said he couldn’t divulge details of the proposal, but voted against withdrawing from the task force before a June 18 deadline trustees had set for consideration of potential downtown options.

“I was prepared to stay on the task force as long as the board wanted to keep it going,” Simmons said. (But) the board didn’t want to lose the opportunity to go with the Crestwood site,” he said.

“They’re worried that if they wait too long, they (the province) may want us to move in another direction.”

Simmons said the board has put years of work into the Crestwood plan, which will consolidate staff from the existing headquarters across from city hall and those at other locations.

The downtown headquarters have been sold to McMaster University, which plans to demolish the 100 Main St. W. landmark to make way for a health campus that will also be home to the city’s health department.

“We feel that the Crestwood site being the actual centre, by a couple of lots, of the city of Hamilton would still bring positive development to the city and to our stakeholders and students,” Simmons said. “It’s near major arteries and it’s on public transit lines.”

Hamilton Community News

http://www.thespec.com/print/article/733110

[SteelTown]

The City did it's best so can't pass any blame to the City.

[markbarbera]

Meh.

I am not a fan of seeing office space move out of the downtown, but this needs a bit of perspective. We have 250 current school board staff moving out of downtown. These are public servants that are either about to enter a multi-year wage freeze, or a protracted strike. Either way, their disposable income is highly restricted. They have treated the downtown office as an ivory tower. They drive to work, put in their hours, brown-bag their lunches, then rush home at quitting time. Their interaction with downtown businesses was marginal at best. Exactly why are we fretting over their departure from the core?

I would be more concerned if they were abandoning the building and there was no prospect for a replacement contingent of office workers. Thankfully this is not the case. The new facility here will be a medical centre that will have a higher employee count consisting of medical professionals, plus a large complement of medical students, and it will draw considerable foot traffic in the form of those making use of the services at the medical centre. This is a much better formula for increasing staff interaction with local businesses.

To the HWDSB I say good riddance, don't let the door hit you on the way out.

[SteelTown]

Beasley neighbourhood the loser in Board of Ed HQ wheeling and

http://www.thespec.com/news/local/ar...g-and-dealling

The Spectator has learned that the Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board’s rejected a proposal to renovate an historic Beasley building in favour of building new headquarters on the Mountain.

According to Councillor Brian McHattie, the option presented to trustees in a closed-door meeting Monday was to renovate the vacant Cannon Knitting Mills on Mary Street to house the new education centre.

The plan was to move the board’s administrative staff to that building. Another undisclosed property in or around the Beasley neighbourhood would have been used to accommodate maintenance operations, consolidating all the board’s employees in the core.

The proposal fit within the board’s $31.6-million budget, McHattie added.

But the board decided against the downtown option in favour of building its new headquarters at the Crestwood school site on the Mountain, near Lime Ridge Mall — a decision McHattie called “a little premature.”

“I’m extremely disappointed,” he said. “Earlier they had spoken about giving us until June 18 to work on the details.”

That’s when the joint task force assembled to look into downtown education centre sites was scheduled to report back to the board with its findings. Trustees also voted Monday to dissolve that task force immediately — three weeks ahead of the deadline.

According to board chair Tim Simmons, it was nervousness on the part of trustees that brought an end to the process.

The fear was that the Ministry of Education would change its mind about approving a new education centre altogether amid an effort to cut administrative spending at boards across the province, he added.

Although the board will pay for the building itself with money from the sale of other administrative properties, it still needs the province to approve the construction.

The ministry backed the board’s plan to build at Crestwood last September.

The board is vacating its current home at 100 Main West in July to make way for McMaster University’s new $85-million health campus. Administrative staff will move into the Standard Life Building, Stelco Tower and Robert Thomson Building while the new headquarters is under construction.

[SteelTown]

The other options was taking over the Sir John A school. But apparently the school board had to purchase the building, even if they own the building.

[durandy]

Originally Posted by SteelTown

The other options was taking over the Sir John A school. But apparently the school board had to purchase the building, even if they own the building.

which is so stupid. They couldn't purchase it from themselves?

[Dr Awesomesauce]

Haha...that's the funniest thing I've heard in a while.

Re: SJAM

Anybody who suggested that idea likely never set foot in the building. It was inappropriate as a school the moment the doors opened in 1970. It's cramped and labyrinthine, has few windows, bad HVAC etc. It looks and feels like the Barton St jail.

In terms of the Board leaving downtown, it's not about what they contribute economically but what it means to have them in the centre, rather than adjacent to LRM. That and losing a nice building. It all seems so very very unnecessary.

Anyway, this is a very sad day for lower city denizens.