One of many oldest faculty buildings in downtown Kingston, Frontenac Public Faculty, might hit the native actual property market quickly, pending choices made on the subsequent Board Assembly of the Limestone District Faculty Board (LDSB).
At their upcoming assembly to happen on Wednesday, Sept. 21, 2022, the LDSB Board of Trustees will look into the potential sale of the previous Frontenac Public Faculty property, positioned at 38 Cowdy Avenue.
A Report for Motion from Superintendent of Enterprise, Craig Younger, on the ‘Disposition of Faculty Property at 38 Cowdy Avenue’ will probably be acquired by the Board, “to offer data to Trustees regarding the disposition of” the property. This comes because of a course of that started almost 10 years in the past, when the Kingston North Public Lodging Overview Committee report was introduced to the Board with “the advice to the search Ministry of Schooling funding for the development of a brand new elementary faculty” in November 2012, the report states.
As many in Kingston will recall, that advice sought to consolidate Frontenac and First Avenue Public Faculties and, with funding granted from the Ministry, Molly Brant Elementary Faculty was constructed prematurely of the 2016-2017 faculty yr. Following this, “First Avenue Public Faculty went by the disposition course of and was subsequently offered,” the report notes. Thereafter, Kingston Secondary Faculty was constructed, leading to extra model new faculty area within the space.
“The Ministry of Schooling supplied a brief identification quantity for the college facility at 38 Cowdy St., for it for use for a secondary faculty website whereas Kingston Secondary Faculty was being constructed. The Ministry’s non permanent naming of this website is QECVI & Holding. Limestone DSB operated programming on the constructing below the title Katarokwi Studying Centre,” the report continues.
In actual fact, the Katarokwi Studying Centre, an LDSB various studying centre, operated out of the north finish of the previous Frontenac Public Faculty till June of 2022. The centre only recently moved to its new location at 164 Van Order Drive, which is the LDSB-owned constructing throughout the road from the Board’s Loyalist Collegiate Vocational Institute (LCVI), the Board confirmed on Friday, Sept. 16, 2022.
It must be famous that Frontenac Public Faculty has a storied previous, which pre-dates the precise constructing and placement in query. The varsity got here to exist, paradoxically, with the merger of two colleges within the late 1800s, certainly one of which was Depot Faculty, constructed on the nook of Railway and Montreal Streets (the outdated limestone constructing that now homes the workplaces of City Houses Kingston) to offer an area for educating the inflow of kids of the households settled in Kingston’s Interior Harbour and across the Grand Trunk Railway outer station circa the 1860s.
Erected in 1896, the present Frontenac Public Faculty constructing is far bigger than the unique, which was rebuilt within the Nineteen Forties. Previous to that, nevertheless, Frontenac Public was the positioning of certainly one of Kingston’s earliest notorious and tragic occasions. In 1902, a 14-year-old pupil was shot by her classmate, who reportedly believed the pistol he’d introduced with him hid in his jacket was not loaded. Sadly, this was not the case, and the coed, Beatrice Holland, was killed within the incident, which comes up typically in books on Kingston’s early years.
However Frontenac Public went on to develop and, at factors, thrive. By the early Nineteen Fifties, it was deemed a “senior faculty,” once more being a part of a pupil amalgamation. This time grade 7 and eight college students from space colleges of the time (equivalent to Robert Meek, Macdonald, and First Avenue colleges) attended Frontenac Public and, in 1966, it turned the primary faculty in Kingston with a fully-dedicated music room, below the route of Charlotte Clark. Clark later based the Younger Choristers Frontenac choirs (later Younger Choristers Limestone), which operated for many years all through Kingston and Frontenac County.
Nevertheless, after that, the college’s enrolment ranges dwindled. Frontenac Public Faculty then shared its area with a daycare, some group teams, and the aforementioned Katarokwi Studying Centre, earlier than it was shuttered. A lot of what’s documented concerning the faculty’s historical past could be seen on the Frontenac County Faculties Museum.
In accordance with the LDSB, the property is 0.64 hectares (approx. 1.5 acres), with the constructing itself accounting for 4,530 sq. metres (approx. 48,761 sq. ft.). The schoolyard of the property is “partially owned by the board and an settlement with the Metropolis of Kingston faculty use on the adjoining metropolis parkette).”
“The power at 38 Cowdy St. is now closed and doesn’t have common custodial workers current,” the report concludes earlier than recommending that the LDSB resolve that the property is not wanted for the needs of the Board, and that “the Board authorize the Superintendent of Enterprise to undertake the notification and disposition means of 38 Cowdy Avenue in accordance with the Ministry of Schooling laws together with however not restricted to Ontario Regulation 444/98 – Disposition of Surplus Actual Property.” The report doesn’t disclose the approximate worth of the previous Frontenac Public Faculty property.
The LDSB Board of Trustees will meet publicly starting at 6 p.m. on Wednesday, Sept. 21, 2022. Particulars on the assembly and a hyperlink to observe the assembly dwell could be discovered on the Limestone District Faculty Board web site.
