30 June 2007
Brewery Owners Want Museum in the Roundhouse, Not Leon's
Ex-Canadian Pacific Railway DS-1000
switcher 7069 outside the John Street Roundhouse.
Toronto Ontario - First came the news that a Leon's outlet
would be moving into the old roundhouse rail facility.
Then came an order that a 1948 CP Rail locomotive stored there had to hit the rails - or be turned into scrap.
Now the owners of Steam Whistle brewery have asked the city to hold the train, so to speak, on everything.
The brewery, which operates inside the roundhouse near the Rogers Centre, is bringing a proposal to Mayor David Miller next week
calling for a rail museum to be established in the space set aside for the furniture store.
Here's the plan as it stands: The developers who lease the city-owned roundhouse - the ones bringing in Leon's -
would pay for a rail museum to be housed in three of the roundhouse's 32 bays.
These are areas once used to service and repair locomotives while the roundhouse was a working facility, between 1931 and 1986.
The museum would sit in-between Steam Whistle and the new Leon's, filling bays 15-17.
Leon's would get all bays above 17, up to 32, while Steam Whistle would hold onto bays 1 to 14.
Steam Whistle co-owners Greg Taylor and Cam Heaps aren't happy with that plan at all. And they don't just want Leon's out
as a possible neighbour.
Instead, they want the entire space not currently occupied set aside for a larger rail museum, not just a couple of bays.
Taylor said there are other partners interested in joining in their plan. "We're coming back to the city and saying, Hold on, this
doesn't make sense as a use of an important building in the city, and an area that sits in the middle of a tourism hub," Taylor
said.
"Give us a chance to come up with something better than a furniture warehouse."
Financing isn't a problem, say the Steam Whistle owners, and restoring the space Leon's wants would only take a year or so.
"Having a furniture store there is a ludicrous idea," Taylor said.
The main sticking point is that the city has a lease with the developers and would likely be open to lawsuits if the agreement is
broken.
The city's culture department is okay with the furniture store moving in as long as the heritage elements of the roundhouse are
maintained as promised.
Steam Whistle "should negotiate (their proposal) with the developers," Rita Davies, executive director of the city's culture
department, said yesterday.
Adam Vaughan (Ward 20, Trinity-Spadina), the area councillor, said earlier this week that the city's legal department is
looking into "what latitude the city might have" regarding its contract with the developers and whether the developers have
actually signed a contract with Leon's.
"It's unclear to us now whether we have the legal ability to stop any of this. We have some moral clout we are trying to
resuscitate," Vaughan said. "Many of us are appalled at the way this has turned out."
Vaughan explained that decisions by previous councils may have tied the city's hands on this one.
Steam Whistle's attempt comes as the owners of a rebuilt 1948 engine face a city-imposed deadline to remove it from the
roundhouse by Tuesday.
Toronto brothers Doug and Don Lister, both train engineers, found the train in "1,000 pieces" and headed for a scrap heap in
Vancouver in 1978.
Using their own money, they fixed it up. But now the brothers say they don't have the $50,000 it would cost to move the switching
engine using a flatbed truck.
In 1987, they received permission from then mayor Art Eggleton to store the locomotive at the roundhouse. But that agreement said
either side could get out at any time, as long as there was 180 days' notice, which the city has given.
Davies said yesterday that the engine doesn't even belong to the period of rail history represented by the roundhouse, according to
historians the city has consulted with.
So if the owners don't remove the engine, she said, the city might have to look at finding an institution that can take
it.
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