Friday, August 16, 2002
Frank Armstron
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The Kingston Whig-Standard
Developer Kim Donovan has confirmed that his company has acquired a key downtown property that has been the centre of controversy for many years. Donovan said this week that Kincore Holdings has purchased the empty lot at 77 Clarence St.
The lot was sold by Braebury Homes, whose president Peter Splinter had spent more than four years fighting for the right to build a seven-storey building there. "The reason we purchased it was that we have adjacent properties fronting both on King Street and on Brock Street and those properties back on to this vacant land," Donovan told The Whig-Standard. Splinter fought local heritage activists and the Ontario Municipal Board for more than four years to build an office and condominium complex on the site of The Whig Standard's former mailing room and press.
Braebury Place, the proposed $12-million complex, would have housed Braebury's head office. Plans for the complex featured a facade of Kingston-cut limestone at street level and brick, accented by stucco, on the upper floors. Plans called for 27,000 square metres of space with 50 retirement condominium units and 100 underground parking spots. But the plans were criticized for being out of character with the historic streetscape of downtown Kingston, as well as being two storeys too high.
Splinter told The Whig-Standard in July he was going to kill his plans and sell the property because he preferred to concentrate on building homes. Braebury is Kingston's biggest homebuilder.
Whatever Kincore builds on the newly acquired property will likely be dramatically different from the Braebury project. Donovan said plans haven't yet been drawn up, but Kingstonians can expect Kincore to follow the development principles it has used in its other downtown developments, such as Brock Street Common on lower Brock Street. In that space, there is pedestrian access from Brock Street to the Chez Piggy courtyard. Retailers reside on the ground floor and there are offices and apartments on the upper floors. "Our largest focus is on building more residential in keeping with our principal objective of having more people living downtown," said Donovan, whose company also owns the Gourdier Building at 78 Brock St., which houses Serendipity Lane and loft apartments.
Since arriving in Kingston from London, Ont., a few years ago, Donovan and his development team have snapped up a number large properties in downtown Kingston. Their objective, they say, is to help improve the vitality of the downtown through development.
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Kincore Snaps Up Controversial Lot: Developer Amasses Block of Land Downtown with Clarence Street Bu |
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