{"id":19058,"date":"2017-11-22T16:25:21","date_gmt":"2017-11-22T21:25:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=19058"},"modified":"2017-11-22T16:25:21","modified_gmt":"2017-11-22T21:25:21","slug":"new-lease-on-life-for-armoury-library-square-set-for-december-demolition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/new-lease-on-life-for-armoury-library-square-set-for-december-demolition\/","title":{"rendered":"New lease on life for Armoury, Library Square set for December demolition"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n

Change will soon be in the air throughout Aurora\u2019s Downtown Core but it is unclear at this point just what that change will be.
\nCouncil last week executed a confidential lease agreement on the historic Aurora Armoury on the northeast corner of Town Park.
\n Discussed behind closed doors, the vague motion stemming from the Closed Session meeting was approved out in the open and carried on a 8 \u2013 1 vote on Tuesday night with Councillor John Abel being the lone dissenting voice.
\nStephanie Mackenzie-Smith, Manager of Corporate
\nCommunications for the Town of Aurora, says just what the lease entails \u2013 and what the future of the building will be \u2013 is expected to be announced by the end of the month, but some Council members expressed optimism about what\u2019s in store.
\n\u201cI wanted to take an opportunity to thank staff and our CEO and everyone involved,\u201d said Councillor Tom Mrakas just before the vote was taken. \u201cI think they have done a tremendous amount of work and I think we will all appreciate it. I also want to thank Councillor Pirri for all the work he has done on this specific item.\u201d
\nThese sentiments were shared by Mayor Geoff Dawe who said, \u201cI think we all look forward to announcing a little more fully what this is all about.\u201d
\nThere has been no shortage of speculation in the community on just what this is all about. Whatever the details, Councillor Abel has been consistent in his opposition while seated at the Council table, suggesting the Armoury has value as a community space and should be shared as such, whether as a place for the Town of Aurora to host events or as space for local organizations, such as the Aurora Bridge Club and Air Cadets, who have been displaced pending the demolition of the old Aurora Public Library and Seniors\u2019 Centre buildings on Victoria Street.
\n\u201cWe have come out of Closed Session and instructed staff to go ahead with the lease at 89 Mosley Street and I think we should declare that facility surplus and see if there is an expression of interest,\u201d said Councillor Abel during the New Business section of last week\u2019s Council agenda, which took place after the Armoury vote. \u201cIn lieu of that not being the case, I think an explanation to our residents should be forthcoming, a communication as to why that is not taking place.\u201d
\nThe Councillor stated his case after Council received an update on the fate of the two buildings occupying the space which has become known as \u201cLibrary Square.\u201d
\nCouncil approved the demolition of the former library and seniors\u2019 centre buildings earlier this year and, by the end of the summer, it was expected the land would be levelled by the end of this month.
\nThere has, however, been a slight delay, according to CAO Doug Nadorozny.
\n\u201cI don\u2019t have all the details but I know the tender closed,\u201d said the CAO on executing the demolition contracts. \u201cThe winning tender was below the budget and we anticipate moving forward. I don\u2019t know if there was any alteration to the timeline in that winning bid, but I believe it was to start in December.\u201d<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Change will soon be in the air throughout Aurora\u2019s Downtown Core but it is unclear at this point just what that change will be. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19058","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-4Xo","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-25 14:42:29","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19058","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19058"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19058\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19058"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19058"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19058"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}