{"id":20979,"date":"2018-06-24T00:56:18","date_gmt":"2018-06-24T04:56:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=20979"},"modified":"2018-06-24T00:56:18","modified_gmt":"2018-06-24T04:56:18","slug":"council-puts-a-lid-on-aurora-armoury-renos-approving-5-million-budget","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/council-puts-a-lid-on-aurora-armoury-renos-approving-5-million-budget\/","title":{"rendered":"Council puts a \u201clid\u201d on Aurora Armoury renos, approving $5 million budget"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

The devil was in the details, and now that Council has decided what kind of roof to put on the historic Aurora Armoury, money is now flowing to complete its restoration.
\nCouncil last week voted 7 \u2013 2 last week to put a zinc roof on the landmark at the northeast corner of Town Park.
\nThe roof component was the missing piece of what was once a $4.7 million base budget tentatively approved by Council the previous week to finance the 1870s Armoury\u2019s transformation from a drill shed that was once home to the Queen\u2019s York Rangers into the newest campus of Niagara College\u2019s Canadian Food & Wine Institute.
\nCouncil was presented with three roofing options \u2013 a $30,000 basic steel roof, a zinc roof for $380,000, and an $800,000 copper roof option.
\nTheir choice of the zinc roof brings the renovation budget up to $5.045 million.
\n\u201cThe architect has identified wood, zinc and cooper as roof materials that were most likely available when the Armoury was constructed,\u201d said Anthony Ierullo, Aurora\u2019s Manager of Policy Planning and Economic Development for the Town of Aurora in his report to Council. \u201cGiven the utilitarian nature of this building, it is not expected that copper would have been a preferred material for this type of building at that time. The Architect is not recommending a wooden roof due to the cost and upkeep associated with this material, particularly when considering the recommended exterior wood finish.\u201d
\nA standard metal roof, the report notes, has a lifespan of approximately 40 years. The zinc and copper options would extend the roof life to 80 \u2013 100 years.
\n\u201cBased on the above considerations, the zinc roof alternative is preferred by the Town\u2019s architect as a heritage sensitive alternative,\u201d Mr. Ierullo continued. \u201cThis material offers a time appropriate alternative that could be envisioned for use in a late 17th [sic] century drill shed without the associated maintenance costs of wood.\u201d
\nWhile Councillor John Abel supported the copper roof option, the majority of Council disagreed, citing not only the extra costs, but the view that a copper roof was not in keeping with the original look of the building.
\n\u201cIt doesn\u2019t fit in with the period or the use of the building at the time,\u201d said Councillor Paul Pirri. \u201cIt is an additional cost, and if we all look and read the report, it doesn\u2019t bear out in the life cycle costs to be more cost efficient than the steel roof which is already included.\u201d
\nSupporting the next step above the steel roof, zinc, was Councillor Wendy Gaertner.
\n\u201cI think this is the appropriate use for the building,\u201d she said. \u201cI think it is going to give us a lot less trouble than a metal roof. I think it has a long life cycle and I think the metal roof is going to have to be replaced far quicker than the zinc roof.\u201d
\nWhile zinc ultimately won the day, and it was the last hurdle the Armoury renovations had to clear before going to the next level, last Tuesday\u2019s debate was another opportunity for Councillor Abel to voice his opposition of the project.
\nCouncillor Abel questioned the fact a cost analysis was done with the roof options and not, he contended, a cost analysis of the whole deal with Niagara College, a concern he has brought up repeatedly around the table.
\nHis comment brought a flurry of Points of Order from a number of Councillors, including Tom Mrakas, who said it didn\u2019t make sense that Councillor Abel wanted to go with a roof option above the base metal if he wasn\u2019t in favour of renovating the building.
\nNot so, said Councillor Abel.
\n\u201cI am in favour of renovating the Armoury,\u201d he said. \u201cI was in favour of the $2.3 million we originally started at. My point is I am in favour of renovating the Armoury and I thought the investment in zinc would be a good one.\u201d<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The devil was in the details, and now that Council has decided what kind of roof to put on the historic Aurora Armoury, money is now flowing to complete its restoration.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":20941,"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-20979","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/2018-06-21-04.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-5sn","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-05 22:29:53","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\/20979","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=20979"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20979\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20941"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20979"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20979"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20979"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}