Kingston, the hip heritage city, builds a future on the past - millions spent to redevelop waterfront, preserve downtown
KINGSTON IS THE resting place of Sir John A. Macdonald,
Canada’s first Prime Minister and the city’s most famous citizen. Born in
Glasgow in 1815, Macdonald emigrated to Kingston with his family when he was
five years old. After studying law in Kingston, Macdonald opened his first law
office on Wellington Street. After a brief stint on Kingston’s municipal
council, Macdonald was elected to represent Kingston in the parliament for the
United Province of Canada. The rest is history.
ENGINE 1095, KNOWN as The Spirit of Sir John A., is located
downtown in Confederation Park, where it serves the tourist bureau. It’s a reminder that Kingston was home
for 114 years to the Canadian Locomotive Company, which built more than 3,000
steam, electric and diesel engines. The Spirit of Sir John A. was one of 25
such models built for the Canadian Pacific.
A NUMBER OF LARGE wetland areas lend a feeling of openness,
naturalness and wildlife to Kingston’s intensely developed urban spaces. The
Great Cataraqui Marsh and Little Cataraqui Creek are two wetland areas that are
provincially significant and municipally protected from development. Together
these two wetlands cover 707 acres.
The best way to describe Kingston, nicknamed the “Limestone
City” for its many historic buildings, is water, water everywhere.
Thanks to its geographic position, Kingston boasts
magnificent water views of Little Cataraqui Creek, the Great Cataraqui River,
Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence River. Renowned as the fresh-water capital of
North America, Kingston is a major port to cruise the famous Thousand Islands,
which begin here.
The city owns and operates two marinas, including the one at
Portsmouth Olympic Harbour, site of the sailing events of the 1976 Olympics —
Kingston today is host to the annual Canadian Olympic Training Regatta. The
other marina is located in the heart of the downtown across from City Hall, a
National Historic Site.
Public access No. 1
The downtown waterfront is important to Kingston’s tourism
economy. It is also the place where residents come to walk and cycle and to
shop and eat in the many restaurants and alley patios found throughout this
popular district. It’s also the arrival and departing point for water-based
recreational activities and the free 20-minute ferry ride to and from Wolfe
Island, whose residents rely on the link to the mainland.
Kingston is so proud of its water views that they are
protected in the city’s Official Plan, which also entrenches public access to
the waterfront as every citizen’s right — well, that’s the intention anyway. A
recent example of that principle in action is the Marriott hotel project, which
opened in 2010 on the harbourfront. As part of the approval for the
development, which also includes highrise rental apartments with views to die
for, city council told the developer that public space must be built around it
all, with a new park developed in front along the harbour.
Called Battery Park in honour of the former 1801 Mississauga
Battery on the property, the park’s main features are a seating
wall, made of weathered limestone blocks, along the east side of the site and a
plaza in the centre, with grassy slopes for “event” seating. In the future, the
city has plans to build a boardwalk along the seawall and phase in a marina.
History lovers have 17 museums to explore
Equally as important to Kingston’s economy is the
preservation of Kingston’s gorgeous downtown and its many fascinating heritage
buildings, with none more spectacular than City Hall. Completed in 1844, the
stately building, capped with a distinctive dome supported by four impressive
columns, is a downtown landmark that speaks volumes to this city’s love of
history.
Today’s amalgamated City of Kingston is home to about
117,250 people, with half of them living in the built-up area. Still mostly
rural, Kingston is the county seat of Frontenac County. It is also home to
Queen’s University — its roots go back to 1841, 26 years before Confederation —
and Fort Henry, a National Historic Site and one of 17 museums here. The Royal Military College, founded in
1874, has its headquarters on some of Kingston’s most prized waterfront land.
Kingston’s most celebrated citizen is Sir John A. Macdonald,
the architect of Confederation and Canada’s first prime minister.
Today, Kingston is an eclectic mix of old and new,
small-town charm and big-city sophistication.
Theatre rolls out festival of wine and food
The revamped Grand Theatre, the
city’s premier performing arts facility, announced recently that it is launching
the Grand Festival of Fine Canadian Wines and Food, to be held every October. Live
theatre, world-class concerts, galleries and festivals are just some of the
benefits of living in a modern university town that just happened to be the first
capital of a united Canada.
Kingston’s Downtown Action Plan is a prime example of how
preserving history can be challenging, yet present opportunities to make things
better, by thinking smart. The plan was born from a need to update and replace
the city’s downtown infrastructure — all those underground sewers and
waterlines and electrical services — that just weren’t meant to last 200
years.
The project is big,
covering 36 city blocks, and involves the replacement of about nine kilometres
of urban streets and sidewalks to get at the underground. A costly endeavour,
the infrastructure overhaul will be done in phases.
Canadian cities everywhere are in the same boat. What’s
unique in Kingston is that the city is thinking beyond the underground. In
efforts to look at the big picture, the city has come up with guidelines that
will be followed each time a street is torn up. For example, things like
special street lighting to set the mood in a special district, the creation of
new greenspace where it’s needed, or the development of more pathways to the
waterfront will be co-ordinated with each infrastructure project. Everything
will be done with an eye to increasing the downtown’s tourism, recreation and
entertainment potential while improving traffic flow.
Downtown block scheduled for facelift
The city is also planning a major redevelopment of an
underused section of downtown, adjacent to the K-Rock Centre, Kingston’s new
arena complex. Several concepts are being considered, from low-rise commercial
to highrise residential and everything in between. Whichever plan is chosen,
the existing heritage buildings along Queen Street will be retained and incorporated
into the new development.
Closer to the waterfront, the city is about to redevelop a
large, underused park on the western edge of the downtown core.
Lake Ontario Park, located beside the
former psychiatric hospital lands, had been a popular place up until a decade
ago, when the city pulled the plug on the midway and the municipal campground
operations. To draw the crowds back, the master plan envisions lots of open
lawn area for events, a network of paths leading to the shoreline and to nearby
Elevator Bay Park, improvements to the beach area, a spot where you can rent
canoes and kayaks, a fishing platform and rock terraces, perfect for those
panoramic lake views.
The city is also restoring the shoreline and improving its
waterfront pathway from an area stretching near the Kingston Yacht Club to the
Marine Museum of the Great Lakes.
Residential development planned for pier
Meanwhile, the city is waiting for a
developer to move on a housing development already approved for the pier at
Elevator Bay, the thin strip of concrete that juts out into Lake Ontario from
Cataraqui Bay. Cataraqui Bay is also known as Elevator Bay, so named for the
large grain elevators that once occupied the pier on its east side.
On the resale real estate front, recent
listings for waterfront property in Kingston included a 1,000-square-foot
two-bedroom, two-bath apartment condo near the Portsmouth village harbour for
$229,000. A 1,380-square-foot highrise condo with views over Kingston’s inner
harbour was listed for $429,000, while at the top end of the condo budget, a
three-bedroom with 1,830 square feet was priced at $620,000. If a waterfront
single-family home is more your style, a five-bedroom house with view of
Collins Bay on the outskirts of town was listed at $929,000 — complete with
private dock.