LaSalle Park to get a solid review - lease has just over two years left.

By Staff

November 9th, 2020

BURLINGTON, ON

LaSalle Park is back in the news.

The land is owned by the city of Hamilton.

Burlington has a 40 year ($1 a year) lease that ends in December 2022.

Someone is going to have to make a decision – soon. The people who have the agreement with the city to host private events at the Pavilion want to be able to take reservations into 2022

When it came to negotiating a deal for the sale or long term lease renewal Neither James Ridge of Hamilton city manager Chris Murray were able to settle on anything.

In 2017 Burlington’s then City Manager James Ridge met with the then Hamilton city manager Chris Murray to talk about purchasing the land. An agreement couldn’t be reached. There wasn’t much in the way of public information at the time other than that Hamilton wanted more than Burlington was prepared to or able to pay.

The park is a wonderful place that gets well used. There is a joint venture and licensing agreement with the Burlington Boating and Sailing Club and LaSalle Park Marina Association.

The city recently pumped more than $4 million to upgrading the wave breaks at the marina.

The report that goes to Council on Thursday is one of those Receive and File that no action is taken on. It will be interesting to hear where Ward 1 Councillor Kelvin Galbraith stands on this one. His predecessor Rick Craven was a very strong advocate for the park.

The 51.5 acre park has kilometers of trail both inland and along the shore, picnic areas, bocce courts, an accessible playground, a wading pool, 2 baseball diamonds, a boat launch, a marina, toboggan hill and public washrooms.

The park was built in 1915 by the Hamilton Parks Board and the pavilion was built shortly after in 1917 at a time when Aldershot was part of Hamilton. The park name commemorates prominent French explorer Rene-Robert Cavalier, Sir de LaSalle who is believed to have landed on this site in 1669.

The location served as an amusement park and entertainment venue. In its heyday and there was swimming on the shore. Hamilton residents would take a ferry boat to enjoy a day in the park. The LaSalle Pavilion had a restaurant on the main floor and ballroom on the second floor that would accommodate many elegant dinners, dances and musical performances.

The Pavilion was structurally restored in 1995 only to be destroyed by a fire in the same year. The entire building was reconstructed in 1997 to its original heritage design.

Running the park is not cheap – the cost of replacing what is here now and the cost of operating the site are set out below.

The 2019 replacement value of park assets is $19.59 million.

The 2019 replacement value of assets associated with these two organizations, totaling $8.48 million. $4 million of that was the result of a raid on a Hydro Reserve fund used to pay for the replacement of the wave break without which the Marina may not have been able to survive.

It is going to take some astute negotiating to get a new arrangement in place by December of 2022. It will perhaps be a different city on that date.

Former Mayor Walter Mulkewich explains the role he played.  “My recollection is that Council authorized myself and Councillor Brechin to negotiate with the Parks Committee of Hamilton re LaSalle.  I then knew many of the Hamilton Councillors..  We were able to negotiate a 40 year lease which both Hamilton and Burlington Councils endorsed. ”

City hall might want to give him a call.