It might be February, but this is the first planning meeting of the year as council will be asked to consider reports about he coming year of housing construction, the next several years of brownfield remediation, and the immediate future of one brownfield in particular. Continue reading “City Council Preview – What’s on the Agenda for the February 12 Meeting?”
A few hours before a council meeting that would discuss the potential redevelopment of the Bakers St. parking lot for a new 200,000 square foot headquarters for the Co-operators, the insurers have reached an agreement with the City of Guelph to develop a new main building in the south end in time for a 2023 move in. Continue reading “Forget Baker Street! Co-operators Moving Forward with New South End HQ”
City council is hourly trying to get things wrapped up before the August break, and this coming Monday they’ll have to act upon some urgent new business that will affect the fate of the downtown core into the immediate future. That might have been over the top, but if you read on you’ll see it’s a pretty big deal. Continue reading “City Council Preview – What’s on the Agenda for the July 17 Meeting?”
The last planning meeting before a summer break will bring a number of potentially controversial developments to council, and some decidedly less controversial rezoning decisions. Continue reading “City Council Preview – What’s on the Agenda for the July 10 Meeting?”
Guelph marked another National Aboriginal Day on Wednesday bringing First Nations dance, music, culture and food to Downtown Guelph in front of City Hall for all to see. A few hundred people gathered on Carden Street to see a wide swath of Indigenous traditions brought to life, a reminder that as we strive for truth and reconciliation, there’s still a culture trying to thrive. Continue reading “GUELPH POLITICAST #83 – Live (ish) From National Aboriginal Day”
There was a bit of controversy today with the Guelph150 banners, one of the entries being labelled taboo because the memory of the crime it references is still fresh in the heads of many Guelphites. But there’s still lots of Guelph History to learn from this interesting and informative Downtown Guelph Business Association promotion, and this is only 10 of them… Continue reading “10 Interesting Factoids From Guelph150”
Underneath that big green tarp near the corner of Wyndham and Macdonell is a world of mystery. The Petrie Building has been a subject of intrigue, speculation and regret for years, if not decades, and it’s facelift is opening up that world as the Trycathlen partners proceed with the renovation and restoration of the Petrie, and one man has been there to capture the transformation as it’s unfolded. Continue reading “GUELPH POLITICAST #79 – Hans Zegerius, Petrie Photographer”
This Saturday is Doors Open Guelph, the annual behind-the-scenes tour of all the places you’d like to see but don’t normally have access to. One of the pit stops in this year’s edition is the Petrie Building, which is a chance for the public to see the long and hotly anticipated renovation of the much neglected downtown Guelph heritage building. Due to circumstances, only the second floor will be open to visitors Saturday, but back in February members of city council, staff, and the media were given a behind the scenes tour of the work in progress, and now you can take that tour too… Continue reading “VIDEO: Behind the Scenes of the Petrie Building Renovations”
As reported in the Guelph Tribune the other day, the Hillside Festival is conceding victory to WayHome after two years of struggle against the upstart music festival just a few hours further away than our own Guelph Lake. The 34th annual Hillside Festival will be held on the weekend of July 14-16, which is a couple of weeks earlier than normal, but does it also put Hillside into conflict with another of Guelph’s summer festivals? Continue reading “Downtown is Cool with the Change in Hillside Dates”
In 1998, the public’s idea of comic book movies were the horrid Batman films by Joel Schumacher, their idea of superhero TV shows was Saturday morning cartoons, and the comic book industry itself nearly went bust after a sales bubble in the early 90s. (Think the Dot-com crash or the 2008 subprime mortgage implosion, but with comics.) It was in that year, a classics graduate from the University of Guelph decided to go into business selling comics, and despite the odds, Jennifer Haines turned her shop into a made-in-Guelph success story. Continue reading “GUELPH POLITICAST #37 – Jennifer Haines, Owner of the Dragon”
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