Residents invited to discuss plans Monday night

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Toronto school board trustee Bruce Davis will unveil a master plan Monday night to build a $30-million community centre and community campus for Lakeshore Collegiate in the Lakeshore.

The Toronto District School Board (TDSB) is presently considering a plan to revitalize the high school campus, and to undergo an "adaptive reuse" of the old Lakeshore Lions Memorial Arena as a community health and fitness facility.

Yesterday, Davis called the 50-year plan a "really neat proposal."

"It's really about revitalizing the entire school campus to have better facilities and opportunities for the kids, but there's a spill over with benefits for other kids, families and seniors," Davis said.

An open house from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. in Lakeshore Collegiate's auditorium invites residents to discuss the plan, to be presented at 7:15 p.m. The school is at the corner of Kipling Avenue and Birmingham Street.

The plan is the work of a community revitalization panel Davis struck in May.

Davis called the old arena "rock solid," and said it could be reworked.

Plans call for a "Lakeshore Centre," a multi-purpose health and fitness centre for all ages, to include three regulation-sized gyms, a dance studio, squash courts, indoor running track, fitness centre and change rooms.

The concept could include a future relocation of neighbouring Gus Ryder Pool, Davis said.

"I think at some point in the next 10 years we could use a new pool," Davis said, noting Gus Ryder Pool is often under repair. "But that would be the city's decision whether that would be a priority."

Adjacent Don Russell Park would be redesigned as a "village green" at the centre of the site.

Lakeshore Collegiate students and local sports teams would gain a new artificial turf soccer and football field, to be dome-covered in winter and spring.

Plans to add seniors' housing could well be the most controversial part of the plan, Davis said.

"Housing is not a centerpiece of the plan. But housing would be a really important community contribution, and also a way to finance the project. But it's not a deal-breaker," the Etobicoke-Lakeshore trustee said.

Any housing would require a zoning amendment from the city on the open space-zoned property, which the city owns.

The funding model has yet to be decided. But Davis said TDSB facilities staff will solicit expressions of interest in partnerships in the project from the private sector, and agencies like the YMCA.

Next September, the old arena and park become the property of the TDSB in a land swap that will see a $33-million, four-pad arena completed on four hectares of land on Kipling Avenue north of Lakeshore Collegiate.

"This could really be a community centre we can be proud of," Davis said.