By Pepper Parr
February 17th, 2025
BURLINGTON, ON
This is the month the city is scheduled to take the Civic Square rebuild to tender.
The timeline at this point is:
Detailed design, permits and approvals from July 2024 to March 2025, tender in February/March 2025 and construction from June 2025 to June 2026.
Members of Council realize this project is one that they are going to have to wear in the months leading up to the 2026 municipal election if the project is late or turns out to cost even more than expected.
If it turns out to be something that people like – they will applaud and be pleased. If it turns out to be a clunker and gets a thumbs down – every member of Council could be looking at the end of their municipal careers.
The problem at this point is that at this point there doesn’t appear to be any potential candidates, other than a possible for Ward 2.
There are many reasons to expect delays on this one – the tariff mess might kill.
Meed Ward said in a Tweet at the time: “Last week, Council received an update from staff regarding next steps on the Civic Square renewal project. We’re nearing the completion of the design work; however, Council has asked staff to report back in September (that was last year) so that Council and the community can get a better understanding of the design.
At a public meeting in City Hall less than 50 people showed up to ask questions of the planners and the design team.
What’s to share? The decision has been made, the funds needed have been allocated and the design teams and doing what they do. Learning that $200,000 was going to be spent on public art was a bit of a surprise but you can’t have a refurbished Civic Square without some art.
Anne Marsden, never a supporter of the project added that: The current Council cancelled the budgetted efforts of the previous Council to abide by access laws for Civic Square. They then turned it into a vanity project that will not satisfy access and safety issues until 2026 and is more than six times the cost. Clearly showing they do not give a fig about how much they spend or their responsibility under the access laws.
Expect some news on this in the not to distant future.
Can’t wait for the funeral Gary.
I agree with Anne and have from the start of this fiasco. First was the expensive revision inside City Hall by this Council. Meanwhile they didn’t think the Civic Square upgrade decided by the last Council and in the budget over six years ago was fancy enough, so started the whole project over again.
Our City Hall is already shamed, dwarfed and partially hidden by The Gallery condo across the road at the Brant and James north-east corner. Someday it will be even better shamed by another high rise across the road at the south-east corner. But we’ll have a high style and expense Civic Square to finally safely be able to navigate over without tripping. As the article hints at, this project may turn out to be the death knell for this Council in 2026.
How many redos in the Design of Civic Square have been done so far? Numerous that have been mentioned so far over the past 6 years . All of which add to the overall end costs. Our current Mayor and Council are all great at spending other people’s money, i.e. ours, the Burlington Tax Payers money!
They do it all the time and without any transparency or any true engagement with residents who elected them and pay their salaries.
If they were spending this money for themselves personally, I think they would be more responsible with their own Budgets. But as Mayor and Council acting for residents, they don’t care whatsoever about Budgets or anything else.
Just like their other vanity projects not yet completed such as Bateman and the Skyway arena. Total costs yet to be made public.
Hopefully this will all end in the next Municipal Election in October 2026, and a new Council will be elected.