{"id":23901,"date":"2019-05-31T13:09:08","date_gmt":"2019-05-31T17:09:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=23901"},"modified":"2019-05-31T13:09:17","modified_gmt":"2019-05-31T17:09:17","slug":"cafe-concept-for-library-square-percolates-debate-on-vision","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/cafe-concept-for-library-square-percolates-debate-on-vision\/","title":{"rendered":"Caf\u00e9 concept for Library Square percolates debate on vision"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

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

Building a caf\u00e9 to\nserve the patrons of Library Square brewed up some heated debate around the\nCouncil table last week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At issue is Council\u2019s\napproval of $157,700 to complete a space within the overall Library Square\nvision for what\u2019s dubbed a \u201ccaf\u00e9 snack bar\/concession style\u201d area. Tentatively\napproved at the Committee level last Tuesday and set to be ratified this week,\nstaff recommended a caf\u00e9\/concession space with this price tag over a $415,000\ncaf\u00e9 with a full kitchen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Staff recommended\nagainst the caf\u00e9 with full kitchen because internal amenities like washrooms\nand staff spaces inside the Church Street School addition would need to move to\naccommodate it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The caf\u00e9\/concession\nspace, although smaller, would be large enough to provide for a commercial\noperation, according to the report penned by Robin McDougall, Aurora\u2019s Director\nof Community Services.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe proposed design\nwould not require any functional spaces to be moved, keeping the current\nfootprint,\u201d she said. \u201cA service counter could be added to provide a typical\nconcession area, similar to a coffee shop or to-go kiosk. Space on the plaza\nlevel permits approximately 20 \u2013 30 seats which would be suitable for a snack\nbar\/concession type of operation.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ms. McDougall added\nthat to get feedback on the \u201cfunctionality\u201d of the space, the Town consulted\nwith Niagara College, which will soon take over the historic Aurora Armoury\nwith a new campus for their Canadian Food & Wine Institute, who weighed in\non the amenities that would be needed in the area.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen comparing the\ntwo options, the snack bar\/concession style option provides a future commercial\nopportunity, can be used for special events, does not impact functional spaces\nand would be a smaller investment. Without a business case, the snack\nbar\/concession option would meet the needs of a future opportunity with limited\nrisk. It is for these reasons the snack bar\/concession is the preferred\noption.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was not, however,\nthe preferred option of Councillor John Gallo who said a snack bar or\nconcession stand was not in keeping with the grander vision for Library Square.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The report, he said,\nspoke to a lack of business case to support full food operation, like a more\nconventional restaurant, but he disagreed, asking if other businesses had been\ngauged for their interest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They have not, said\nMs. McDougall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe haven\u2019t done any\nof that, and to suggest there isn\u2019t a business case\u2026I have read the previous reports\nand I haven\u2019t seen anything concrete other than at our last meeting, the\nconsultants pinged off a few places that don\u2019t work\nwell [such as] the Living Arts Centre in Mississauga,\u201d said Councillor Gallo.\n\u201cI have been there and it is a fantastic restaurant, and I beg to differ that\nit doesn\u2019t work. For me, there are two reasons why I am still doing my best to\npush as hard as I can for significant food services, and that is it adds to the\ndynamic of the plaza, or whatever you want to call it, it provides a service,\nas well as it provides a revenue stream and, to me, that is really important.\nWe haven\u2019t fully, in my view, fleshed that out yet.\u201d
\nThat being said, Councillor Gallo said he did not\nsupport carving out full amenities to the tune of $415,000, but rather have a\nrestaurant come in and do their own leaseholds. Rental rates over a long-term\nlease would recover costs, he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf we haven\u2019t\ncontacted a Starbucks or a Tim Hortons, if we\u2019re moving into more of a\ncaf\u00e9-style, that is probably a pretty good thing to do to understand what it is\nthey need if we\u2019re spending money towards outfitting the space. At the end of\nthe day, I would be very, very disappointed if we ended up with a caf\u00e9 similar\nto our arenas. I would be extremely frustrated and disappointed if that is what\nwe end up with. It just isn\u2019t at the level that this needs to be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Councillor Wendy\nGaertner said she thought \u201cin horror\u201d of having a snack bar at Library Square\nsimilar to those in the local arenas, and expressed interest in \u201cexploring the\npossibility\u201d of a restaurant as \u201ca money-maker.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Other members of\nCouncil, including Councillors Rachel Gilliland and Harold Kim, said they\nbelieved the snack bar concept was the right option given the footprint\navailable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere was a time\nthat I wanted to explore what it was to have a restaurant per se just to see\nwhat those options are,\u201d said Councillor Gilliland. \u201cI think what [staff] have\npresented is a fair assessment of the consequence of doing that, which I think\nyou are losing programming space and you are losing space for people to\nactually sit, 20 \u2013 30 people. I think the caf\u00e9 option does kind of suit the\nspace.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Added Councillor\nKim: \u201cGiven that we\u2019re limited in our footprint of the building itself, without\nencroaching on the Library Square, I don\u2019t know how we can put enough square\nfootage in a potential restaurant to make it worth it. A couple of the\nbusinesses or some of the contractors have said, we don\u2019t have traffic during\nthe weekdays to warrant anyone even bidding for a contract or some kind of\narrangement. When you put all of those things together, I am not sure if it is\nworth the extra two or three months to put this project on hold to blue sky\nsome more. In the end, if we don\u2019t have the space, it is hard to blue sky\nunless we build higher.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Councillor Gallo was\nnevertheless firm in his belief, stating he was \u201ctrying to push the envelope as\nfar as\u201d he possibly could.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI am of the opinion that we need to turn over\nevery rock and explore every avenue to generate some income because this is a\nbig project and not only the capital costs but the operating costs,\u201d he\nconcluded. \u201cI want to do everything I possibly can to see where we can generate\nrevenue to ease the burden on the taxpayers and have a wonderful facility. That\nis my end goal. To me, we have not explored the option of a restaurant to the\ndegree that we can make a solid decision that it doesn\u2019t work. At the end of\nthe day, had we gone through that process, I might be with all of you and say,\n\u2018It just doesn\u2019t work because of all of this,\u2019 but we didn\u2019t do that and I\ndon\u2019t feel confident it doesn\u2019t work because we didn\u2019t do that.\u201d<\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Building a caf\u00e9 to serve the patrons of Library Square brewed up some heated debate around the Council table last week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_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},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23901","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\/p3D2k4-6dv","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-07-24 20:39:33","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\/23901","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=23901"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23901\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23901"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23901"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23901"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}