The Kingston Memorial Centre is a 3,300-seat multi-purpose arena located at 303 York Street in Kingston, Ontario, Canada. Opened in 1951, the Kingston Community Memorial Health and Recreation Centre was designed as a community sports and entertainment centre that would become a "living memorial" in remembrance of Kingstonians who died in both world wars and the Korean War (Planning Partnership-Hughes Downey Architects 2007, p. 5). The Memorial Centre lands and facilities include a war memorial, a large ice pad in the arena building, a new outdoor aquatic centre, agricultural barns, softball diamonds, a cinder track, off leash dog park and a linear park at the east, north and west perimeter of the property. Just east of the arena building was the International Hockey Hall of Fame (IHHOF) museum building at 277 York St. In July 2012, Kingston City Council approved the relocation of the collection on a short-term basis to the Invista Centre on Gardiners Road in Kingston. The existing building was found to have costly repair issues related to moisture penetration. It was demolished after the IHHOF moved to the Invista Centre in Kingston's west end.
The Memorial Centre land has been publicly owned since it was acquired in 1841 by the British Government. Its cultural significance reflects local Kingston agricultural, military and recreational history (Planning Partnership-Hughes Downey Architects 2007, p. 4).
As the Memorial Centre building aged consideration was given by the City of Kingston for ways to rehabilitate the property. In 1993 Parkin Consultants Limited issued a Final Report on the possible uses of the property based primarily on 1980s data. In 1987, the Kingston Canadians junior hockey club was the main tenant with 60% of the facilities events. Entertainment programing accounted for 12% and trade or consumer shows 24% of events. In 1987 there were $774,862 in ticket sales, facility rentals and other income. But operating costs were $1,093,473. The Parkin report noted that the deficit of $318,311 could be reduced with decreased through measures to reduce maintenance and energy costs and by increasing rent, ticket sales, and canteen revenues.
The Memorial Centre was the home to the Kingston Frontenacs ice hockey team and its predecessors, the Kingston Canadians and Kingston Raiders from 1973 to 2008. It was also home to the Kingston Frontenacs of the Eastern Professional Hockey League from 1959 to 1963. When a new downtown arena, the Leon's Centre opened in 2008, the Frontenacs moved to the new facility, playing their last game at the Memorial Centre on February 15, 2008.
The Kingston Memorial Centre is the site of the annual Kingston Fall Fair operated by the Kingston and District Agricultural Society.http://www.kingstonfair.com |Kingston & District Agricultural Society Established in Kingston in 1830 as the Midland Fair and revived in 1912, the Kingston Fall Fair is held over four days each September. It is the second oldest Fair in Ontario, with attendance over 16,000. The society sponsors the Fair with the objective of promoting education through agriculture. The fair includes the largest dairy show held in Ontario.http://kingston.cioc.ca/record/KGN2228 |Kingston & District Agricultural Society background
Since the 1950s the Memorial Centre has been used for many cultural and recreational events including performances by Johnny Cash in 1958 and 1987. Kingston's The Tragically Hip played the centre in 1995http://www.setlist.fm/setlist/the-tragically-hip/1995/kingston-memorial-centre-kingston-on-canada-bd141e6.html | The Tragically Hip Setlist at Kingston Memorial Centre, Kingston, ON, Canada; February 6, 1995 In 2010 it become the home of Kingston Derby Girls, Kingston's first official women's roller derby league.
After 2008, the Memorial Centre became the permanent home of the Queen's Golden Gaels (Queen's varsity hockey), figure skating, and Queen's intramural ice sports. It replaced the Jock Harty Arena which had been demolished to allow for the construction of new athletic facilities at Queen's University. The Church Athletic League of Kingston hockey teams are based at the centre.
History In 1792, John Graves Simcoe, the first Lieutenant Governor of the province of Upper Canada, assisted with the formation of the Agricultural Society of Upper Canada based at Niagara-on-the-Lake to further the development of agriculture in Upper Canada. The society helped to promote agriculture through local agricultural societies and fairs.
On July 12, 1825, the Upper Canada Herald contained an advertisement for the Frontenac Agricultural Society Fair to be held near Kingston. The fair operated on and off until 1925. That year the group reorganized under the name of the Kingston and District Agricultural Society. It has operated the Kingston Fair successfully since that time.
As of 1855 the Midland Agricultural Association (which later evolved into the Frontenac Agricultural Society) leased a 23-acre site at the north end of the federal penitentiary reserve bounded on two sides by Palace and Bath Roads. There they built the Crystal Palace (hence the name Palace Road) in 1858 which was moved to the south-east corner of the Memorial Centre site at York and Alfred and re-erected in 1880 after they acquired the land.
Frontenac Member of Provincial Parliament (MPP) Joseph Longford Haycock (1894 to 1898) served for a number of years as President of the Frontenac Agricultural Association.
The association sold the land to the City of Kingston in January, 1897 for $17,000. (See transfer dated July 5, 1897, Instrument no. CK13650 and Abstract Index 36072-0235 (R) for Land Registry Office #134). Some of the buildings were transferred from the penitentiary grounds along with the Crystal Palace. A 1915 fire insurance map shows buildings (poultry, dairy, horse barns and exhibition building), a grandstand and half-mile track and palace on the property.
Capital fund raising In November 1944 the Corporation of the City of Kingston passed a by-law for the Establishment, Development and Management of the Kingston Community Memorial Health and Recreation Centre and a by-law authorizing debentures of $100,000 toward the establishment of the centre. But money was not to be provided until the building committee raised $225,000 from the community. The Legislative Assembly of Ontario confirmed the expenditure in Bill 9, "An Act respecting the City of Kingston" which received Third Reading on March 22, 1945.
A campaign fund raising pamphlet indicates objective of $400,000 plus $100,000 from the City of Kingston. Donations of more than $38,000 had been received from 65 donors in the closing months of 1945. The pamphlet includes reference to "the grounds enclosed by the already established half-mile race track… will be used for softball and baseball diamonds, tennis courts etc".Memorial Centre Fund Raising Campaign pamphlet, c.1945
By August 1945, at the end of World War II, $80,000 had been raised for the building of the centre. In 1949 Bill Henderson was elected Liberal Member of Parliament for Kingston and the Islands. In 1950 Henderson found federal funds through the Minister of Agriculture for the centre. But the capital funding was tied to the project being dedicated to agricultural purposes and activities as there were no federal funds for an arena. Further capital funding came from the province of Ontario.Kingston Whig Standard, Ken Cuthbertson
City of Kingston and Agricultural Society, 1950 agreement In a 1950 agreementExplanatory Memo dated March 21, 2006 by Legal counsel for the Corporation of the City of Kingston between the City of Kingston and the Agricultural Society, the Society assigned grants of $300,000 ($150,000 by the Government of Canada and $150,000 by the province of Ontario) to the city with the following provisions:
- provides for a Memorial Centre Board (this local board was terminated with the 1997 Provincial Amalgamation Order creating the new City of Kingston and was replaced by an Advisory Committee; the City took over all functions of Board) - s. 2: rights to use are subject to the Society abiding by regulations and rates set by the City of Kingston - s. 2(a) Society has right to use and enjoyment of Fair Grounds, Auditorium and other ancillary buildings and equipment of the Kingston Community Health Recreation Centre for the period when fairs are held. This right does not generally extend beyond the period in September when fairs are held. - 2(b) Society has use and enjoyment of other buildings and erections constructed for the purposes of advancing interests of agriculture. [structures are owned by the City of Kingston] - 2( c) Society has use and enjoyment of the auditorium when not otherwise allocated or required by the Board of Trustees, for the purposes of the Society. [the "Auditorium" is the arena area and the City of Kingston allocates use of it fully throughout year] - 2(d) to have expended toward the cost of constructing other buildings for purposes of advancing interests of agriculture, an amount equal to 50% of net profit from operating the Centre [since there has never been a net profit from operations this section of the agreement has never been operative].
Recent history
In November 2003, Harvey Rosen was elected mayor of the City of Kingston by a resounding margin. A major plank in his campaign was his commitment to solve the issue of the aging Kingston Memorial Centre, the home to the local OHL hockey team the Kingston Frontenacs, which had a game cancelled during the election campaign due to a leaky roof.
The Memorial Centre built in 1951 had not been kept up-to-date during its existence and did not now meet promoters and performers needs. Very few performers had performed at the Memorial in the prior 15 years. There had been a number of studies and attempts in the past two decades to address the issues by either renovating the Memorial Centre or building a new facility. Mayor Rosen had committed during his campaign to appoint a citizen task force to explore the problem and present a solution including funding suggestions within 100 days.
In April 2004 the Mayor's Task Force submitted its report to the Mayor which contained 22 recommendations; the main recommendation was to build a new large venue entertainment centre (LVEC) in downtown Kingston. The mayor presented the report to city council and city council constituted a five-person council committee to verify the validity of the report. The committee and then city council verified the general validity of the report in particular the recommendation to build a 5,500 seat venue in downtown Kingston and constituted a steering committee of public and city council members to make its own implementation recommendations to see a LVEC become a reality, including develop a funding solution, as the funding suggestions in the Mayor's Task Force Report were far from complete, it being implicit that a full funding solution would have to be presented to council for approval. Although selling a portion of the Memorial Centre was suggested in recommendation 7 of the mayors Taxk Force Report the steering committee made alternate recommendations regarding funding the new centre which did not include selling any portion of the Memorial Centre grounds to the joy of most of the community. Council endorsed the recommendations of their steering committee. Although controversial at the time, some in community thinking that the Memorial Centre had been saved from the abyss, the truth is that the recommendation of the volunteer member's of the Mayor's Task Force to sell a portion of the Memorial Centre was never brought to a vote at City Council.